


We Rise In the Dying

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AU Specific Violence, And Kathryn’s a really good teammate and friend, Angst with a Happy Ending, CoWorkers to Friends to Lovers, Ethan gets emotional a lo, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Lingering Grief, M/M, Past minor character death, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, museum heists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:07:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29949054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Agent Nestor?” A voice he recognizes as his superior officer filters through the tinny speaker. “We have a new assignment for you. You’ll need to report to the office on Monday at 0900, conference room 15b. Is that clear?’The formality is suffocating— makes Ethan feel like he’s already in a starched white dress shirt buttoned to the top and slowly choking the life out of him. It’s too much but all Ethan can muster is a: “Yes, sir,” before the line goes dead, the phone falling silent once more, devoid of notifications.Or: After a month of leave, Ethan and Kathryn are paired with a new intelligence team whose new assignment is to take down a ring of dangerous forgers.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Anonymous





	We Rise In the Dying

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Just the Basics (And Nothing More)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419036) by [pulltab (Dekka)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dekka/pseuds/pulltab). 



> This was originally going to be written purely for me to read, but I liked it enough that I decided to share. 
> 
> I read the fic that's linked in the "inspired by" back in early December 2020 and really loved the explosive argument that Mark and Ethan have after a mission. The fic itself is very short (but very good), so naturally I got to daydreaming about something that had no plot, and then I made it have a plot, and now here we are 3 months later. From that fic, I take that one argument and one character event that happened to Ethan, and then made the rest of the plot my own. 
> 
> This fic travels a lot.  
> What turned out to be a large chunk of this fic takes place in Paris, France (we get there on page 23/78). I did do some Google map research, and even went as far as to find a house to model theirs on through a French real estate website because I'm not architecturally creative. If you live in Paris or have been to Paris, know I tried but likely got a good chunk wrong. 
> 
> The title of this fic comes from  
> "Lost it to trying (Mouths Only Lying)" by Son Lux. It's a relatively simple song, lyrically, and the title was originally gonna come from "Legacy" by Charlie Barnes, which is a more lyric-heavy song, but Son Lux kinda snuck up on me and hit me in the face with the simpleness of 'we rise in the dying' in relation to a major theme of this fic.  
> If you're interested in listening to either of those, I put together a little playlist with a good deal of the songs I listened to whole writing this thing, though some don't necessarily relate to the story. [We Rise In the Dying Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6OKqXYBDg4ZALW8ZjdnUQX?si=BB6p_1sHQNWXEg7dD2TvuQ)
> 
> Grammarly and I were the only ones who read through this fic, so all mistakes are my own. As for anything of this nature, and this goes without saying, this is a work of fiction. It starts and stops with the fact that I just simply enjoy their vibe is all. Please do not link/show this to anyone who features, thank you.
> 
> -TBB

Ethan’s tucked into his breakfast nook at the edge of the kitchen, leaned up against the window in his pajamas, sipping still steaming coffee and idly looking through the newspaper he’d decided to pick up on a whim when his work phone pings. It’s been plugged into the wall next to the fridge for a solid month, quiet up until now, so long that Ethan’s almost forgotten what the generic ringtone sounded like.

Realistically, he knew his leave was ending soon, but Ethan hadn’t anticipated for it to already be upon him. So, he reluctantly untucks himself from his spot and tries to make it to where the phone’s ringing before it forwards the call to voicemail. And his leave, that’s a loaded word all of its own. Ethan wouldn’t call his leave a vacation, more like bereavement leave that was forced upon him by his superior officer after Ethan had heard his field agent, Brian, die live on feed. Only Kathryn knows where he’s been for the past month— cooped up in his apartment uptown and barely leaving a three-square block radius.

The phone’s just about to forward over to voicemail when Ethan slides the ‘accept’ button across the bottom of the screen. “Hello?” he answers, voice rusty from inactivity. During his time off, he’s barely spoken to anyone besides Kathryn or his parents, but even those verbal conversations were few and far between.

“Agent Nestor?” A voice he recognizes as his superior officer, Deputy Director Masterson, filters through the tinny speaker. “We have a new assignment for you. You’ll need to report to the office on Monday at 0900, conference room 15b. Is that clear?’

The formality is suffocating— makes Ethan feel like he’s already in a starched white dress shirt buttoned to the top and slowly choking the life out of him. It’s too much but all Ethan can muster is a: “Yes, sir,” before the line goes dead, the phone falling silent once more, devoid of notifications.

He reiterates to himself that he knew this day was coming, and yet here he is, feeling his world crumble at the simplest directive to report to the office for a new assignment in three days. It feels too soon. If someone asks him about Brian, Ethan isn’t confident in his ability to maintain his composure.

Monday. Three days from now.

Ethan grabs the bottle of Bailey’s from above the fridge and drags it back to the kitchen table with him to add to his coffee.

Three days pass quicker than Ethan would have liked. He takes the time to get his clothes in order and boot up his work-issued laptop for the first time since he’d slammed it shut after being told to go home. Turns out, all the windows that had been up then are still up now.

For the first time in a month, he’s confronted by Brian’s personnel file, his polite smile directed at the camera, directed at Ethan’s soul.

Ethan takes a deep, shuddering breath as he remembers the last time he saw Brian alive.

Brian had been clearing a building as part of a domestic terrorism assignment, Ethan in his ear the entire time, tapped into security feeds and guiding him while Kathryn sat next to him online with Laurel. Two people for a small four-story walk-up should have been simple— they’d done it before with little issue with Ethan virtually at the helm of the whole thing. 

They’re in separate rooms when it happens, Brian and Laurel. Brian determines that the room is clear, and Ethan can hear him walk over to the window, feet crunching over shards of broken glass on the wooden floors. There’s a faint whistling that comes through the microphone, indicating the glass on the floor must have been from the now paneless window. The causality of it sends a faint shiver down Ethan’s spine, but he dismisses it. They’re in an old building in downtown Cincinnati— the window could be broken for any number of reasons. 

“Whatcha see out there? Anything nice?” Ethan pokes, not really expecting a straight or serious answer.

Brian hums and it sounds like he knocks out some remaining shards from the window frame. “Nah, but only because I can’t see you from here, bro.”

It’s a joke, a jest, a laugh, but Ethan’s heart still pangs a bit all the same at the sentiment. “Oh, bro,” he returns easy enough, keeping up the charade, keeping his confusing feelings that he’s unsure of half the time buried deep.

They’re quiet for a few moments, which lets Ethan think about what’s going on. His mind flits back to the glass on the inside of the room four stories up. They’re in an old building, sure, but that’s still not exactly an explanation for the window having been broken from the outside so high up. “Brian, get away from the window.” Ethan feels panicky all of a sudden, his voice getting deeper and hard with the tension that seeps into his shoulders.

“Wait what? Why?” He sounds confused, like what Ethan asks now is ridiculous. 

“Something’s not right, I said get away from the window.” Before Brian can say anything in return, Ethan hears a gunshot loud enough that it’s likely in the building but far enough away that it’s in a different room.

Ethan hears Brian yell for Laurel and the crunch of glass underfoot before there’s a different sickening crunch followed by the sound of something falling, something heavy. Panic and fear lance through Ethan’s body all at once. He looks over to see Kathryn talking over her own mic across the room, watches her nod when she seems to get a response. The fear amplifies tenfold.

“Brian?!” Ethan can’t help the alarm in his voice, at the stillness from Brian’s end of the mic. There are no more gunshots, no sounds of suspects storming the upper floors of the building. There’s just eerie silence, heavy over the sudden rushing in his ears.

Ethan’s hands are frozen on his keyboard, fearing the worst. If he wanted to be productive, Ethan could toggle over to life support to watch Laurel and Brian’s heart monitors, but some small part of Ethan is terrified by what he’ll find. An even smaller part knows what will be there.

It’s only moments before he hears the crashing of feet on the floor in front of the stairs and the sound of a doorknob busting through old drywall. And then, for the rest of his life, Ethan is certain he’ll never forget the way Laurel’s voice rings over Brian’s mic, the way he can almost hear her horrified, “shit!” ten feet away through Kathryn’s own headphones.

It was a sniper, Ethan’s told later after the news has set in and he’s regained a modicum of composure. He sits there and avoids everyone’s eyes on him as their team is given the details of it all, as they’re told of the nest other agents found in the building over, one no one had known about.

He’d tried to go on for a few days after that, insisting that he was fine and that he could do simple desk duty. After his third panic attack in the bathroom that following week, Masterson, the deputy director of Ethan’s department, sent him home on leave with orders to take his equipment with him. Apparently, it hadn’t been difficult to see through his facade.

Now, one month later, Ethan sits on the subway with some podcast playing in his ear he’s not listening to and his backpack balanced in his lap. The train rattles on, rounding a turn on its way downtown, and he braces himself against the feeling of the guy next to him leaning his weight against Ethan’s shoulder in a moment of lost balance. He might apologize but Ethan doesn’t hear.

Being surrounded by actual people outside of his three square-block radius and getting to fall back into his at one time, daily routine feels oddly comforting in a way that was very specifically New York.

From the subway station, Ethan walks two blocks east, his podcast still playing in his ears. Out here, the people occupying the streets are largely dressed in business attire and talking very sternly into their cellphones while they wait for a break in traffic. 

Ethan doesn’t _not_ look like them, but he has a hoodie unzipped over his dark blue button-up, thick-framed glasses set on the bridge of his nose rather than contacts that would make him look more polished. He hasn’t refilled his contacts prescription in months, and just the thought of having to take care of his eyes is too much responsibility right now, so the glasses will have to stay. What’s more, his slacks are barely slacks, and the backpack hung on his shoulders studded with different pins doesn’t exactly scream top executive.

At best, Ethan looks like some college intern being used for cheap labor. Yet here he is— he belongs and has the pay stubs to prove it. His badge is threaded through a lanyard hanging under his shirt, revealed only as he pulls it out gracefully upon nearing security. The lobby of the technology sector of the CIA is bright and for all intents and purposes, acts as a nondescript Forbes 500 lobby in downtown Manhattan.

His badge scans and security lets him by after looking through his bag. For as long as Ethan’s worked here, he’s never come to recognize the security officers or the front desk secretaries, but he doesn’t know if that’s the point or if he’s just that unobservant. Even though the people who work in the building are meant to fly under the radar, are they important enough to shuffle around the security forces every so often, or do they save that for the higher-ups? 

In any case, Ethan smiles and follows the stream of people towards the elevators. Ears empty of any noise after pulling his earbuds out, Ethan stands in silence while the elevator takes him to the fiftieth floor. He’s pushed himself into the back corner of the lift, away from prying eyes that largely pay him no attention anyway. Even if anyone _did_ know who he was, he doubts they’d say anything to him in this public of a space after the rumors that had likely spread throughout the department. Kathryn hadn’t told him of any, but what kind of workplace didn’t at least speculate when a team member abruptly left in the middle of a business day and didn’t come back for a month?

Even after he slinks his way out from around the few people still in there with him when they get to floor fifty, no one speaks to him. Ethan silently passes the receptionist with a polite smile and flash of his badge before pushing into the seeming maze of desks and offices.

Ethan’s old office, a computer lab he’d shared with Kathryn and a few other analysts, sits at the rear of their department's half of the floor, just past the conference room he finds himself directed to now. Vaguely, Ethan wonders if his desk belongings are still placed on his workspace where he left them. Are there random memos someone stuck to his monitor for him to see once he got back? A part of him aches to know how the world continued on around his absence.

The conference room he’s to meet in is situated around a corner near a rear set of emergency stairs with a few chairs sat outside of it. The windows are frosted glass as if that choice alone would preserve the anonymity of the individuals inside.

Outside of it now, Kathryn sits comfortably in one of the chairs idly scrolling through her phone. Her usual blue and yellow tumbler that she nearly always has with her sits perched on the arm of the chair, likely filled with coffee at this early hour. The familiarity is a balm to Ethan’s soul, something so simple yet so normal in the haze of his mind.

As soon as he rounds the field of her vision, Kathryn looks up from her phone, her eyes going wide at seeing Ethan for the first time in a month. Even though it’s only been a month, she looks largely the same while Ethan’s pretty sure that he himself looks just a bit on the rough side, bags prominent under his eyes and hair likely longer than she’s ever seen it, beginning to curl over his ears.

“Ethan? Hey, I didn’t know you were going to be attached to this.” She walks up to Ethan, reaching out for his hand to pull out to his side as if she were a proud mother eager to inspect what her child was wearing. She’s got the smile to boot. Ethan knows what she’s doing, that she’s trying to make him smile, and try as he might, he can’t help but feel the pull up of one side of his mouth at her actions.

“Yeah, Masterson called me on Friday and told me to report here. Do we know what this is about?”

Kathryn steps aside and reaches back down where her coffee sits on the small side table, humming in thought. “There’s been speculation, but nothing concrete. I think they’ve pulled in another division though, to combine efforts. I heard something about a few people from the Clandestine Service? That could be exciting. Best of the best together if you ask me.” The Clandestine Service-- the sector that houses the stereotypical CIA agents that have the movies made of them and that every kid wants to be. Ethan looks up to see a smirk on Kathryn's face after that last part, knowing she’s being cocky on purpose.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go meet the other half of the best then, yeah?”

In the conference room already are two other people Ethan’s never met before: a tall guy with close-cut dark curly hair who’s tinkering on the department computer connected to the projector, and a girl with shoulder-length dark hair scrolling through her phone on the side of the table closest to the door with her back to it. Masterson is nowhere to be found, but it’s not unlike him to run a few minutes behind.

Kathryn leads him to the side of the table facing the door and takes a seat, affording the other girl a smile when they’re given one.

“I take it you guys are the tech side of things? I’m Amy Nelson and that’s Tyler Shied getting into things he probably shouldn’t be.” She raises her voice when talking about Tyler to give him a hint to knock it off, but all she gets in response is a smirk.

Ethan debates asking her how she knows he’s an analyst, and it must show on his face because all Amy does is lean forward onto her elbows propped on the table and point her finger at Ethan’s chest. He looks down and yeah, there’s his badge still hanging outside his shirt with his department plastered there in white text. Okay, so maybe he’s a little rusty.

“I guess it’s a good thing that you’re tech and we’re field then.”

His body wastes no time betraying him, face heating up at the insinuation of him not being good enough.

“He’s been off for the past month, so it’s just vacation brain,” Kathryn supplies, saving him. “I’m Kathryn Knutson and this is Ethan Nestor— Mission Integration services. Do you know the details of this meeting?”

Amy only has time to shake her head before the door to the conference room opens to reveal Deputy Director Masterson with another man, trailing him. Ethan’s never seen him either— he’s almost Masterson's complete opposite: shorter than Masterson’s 6’2 height with short black hair rather than ash blond and a tan complexion instead of Masteron's pale. 

For a moment, Ethan thinks he might be an outside entity to help explain the situation to all of them, but then he sits down next to Amy, making clear he’s another field agent. God, is it a requirement for all field agents to be pretty?

This new man doesn’t offer up any kind of greeting when he sits down, choosing instead to open up the folder he’s brought with him. The silence makes it clear that this guy either doesn’t care for the reason he’s been brought here or doesn’t care to interact with the agents around him, but Ethan finds that he can’t take his eyes off him. Ethan’s almost positive that if this agent were to look up from the table, he’d be startled by Ethan’s gaze, but he doesn’t. If he’s really with the Clandestine Service though, he likely knows Ethan’s looking at him. The only thing that drags him away from staring is Masterson clearing his throat from the front of the room near where Tyler had been standing not too long ago.

“Good morning, and thank you all for being here. I’m Deputy Director Masterson of the Support Services division for those who don’t know me too well.

“We’ve called you all here because there’s an agency-wide push to bring in a group of violent forgers and gang members who are in the business of recreating anything from money to priceless artworks and artifacts. They’re colluding with foreign governments all across Europe and the Middle East, trading anything from intelligence to DaVincis.” Masterson pulls up a few photos from the database of a few different men. They look to be in their mid-to-late-thirties, white, nondescript haircuts, and plain-colored shirts on. They blend right in with 50% of the people Ethan had passed on his way into the office.

“Various divisions and agencies have been chasing after these guys for years, and whenever they pop up, they never stay around for long. The consensus was that the next thing to do would be to put together a team of our top agents, agency-wide, and try again. We’ve tracked one of their top members to Eastern Quebec for the time being. We believe he’s making arrangements for a drop from a big job they’re planning. Your job as a team will be to intercept that job when it happens and apprehend the men in charge once and for all.”

The more that Masterson speaks, the more real this all becomes to Ethan. He wasn’t pulled off of leave to guide some poor soul through a stakeout, no, he was pulled back because apparently, he’s one of their best. And they want him to work with members of one of the most covert divisions in the world, people he’s never worked with, to take down a ring of violent gang members who trade state secrets for a living. Great.

At least he’s got one thing going for him though. He may be a part of the domestic operations normally, but growing up so far north means Canada’s an old friend— especially Quebec.

Somewhere along the way of Masterson going into excruciating detail about the ring, Ethan zones out. He’ll review all this later when it matters. In the meantime, his gaze shifts over each of the three agents he’s not properly met yet. For as much as the new guy wouldn’t look at him when he entered the room, he’s paying rapt attention to Masterson, taking notes here and there on the papers in the folder.

Ethan doesn’t know why he’s watching him so closely, watching the way his pen scrapes across the page at an angle. There’s something about this guy that reminds Ethan startlingly of Brian, makes his heart ache just enough to be uncomfortable. It’s probably the way he holds himself, the way his lips purse every so often when Masterson says something of interest. Or maybe it’s the way he holds the pen between his lips while he’s not writing, the tips of his front teeth barely visible against the black body of the pen.

Masterson saying his name pulls Ethan from his thoughts, jerking his head up and away from the new guy. He hears Masterson say: “Agent Nestor, you’ll be in Agent Fischbach’s ear primarily, though with the ability to assist Kathryn if need be. We’ll convene at the Governor’s Island training site this Wednesday at four am, is that clear? Does everyone remember the side entrance we use? You can pick up a key from the receptionist at the elevators on this floor on your way out.”

Agent Fischbach. The mystery man sitting across from him, good enough to be a top agent of the most classified division, his life in Ethan’s hands. Ethan’s so caught up in assigning a name to a face that he misses Masterson dismissing them all. Misses the part where he was assigned head analyst until this Agent Fischbach is walking around the table towards him. Oh fuck, is he ready for this?

“Agent Nestor? I’m the Agent Fischbach you’ll be working with apparently.” And oh, that’s Fischbach’s hand sticking out in greeting that Ethan should acknowledge.

“Yeah, that’s me. You can call me Ethan though.” Ethan stands, taking Fischbach’s hand like the functioning adult he claims to be.

The small smirk Ethan thinks he sees on the other man’s face could get very dangerous for Ethan very fast if he’s not careful. “If you’re Ethan to me, then I can be Mark to you. I’ve gotta run to another meeting, but I’ll see you Wednesday morning. Make sure you bring your A-game.”

Mark’s leaving before Ethan can utter out little more than a goodbye. The entire interaction makes Ethan feel like he’s got a bit of whiplash.

Kathryn’s there to catch him though, and she walks with him to their shared office to pack their belongings before they’re due to be gone for who knows how long. She briefly asks him how he feels about Mark, and for an irrational, split-second, Ethan thinks she means in a romantic sense, not in a ‘you’re literally going to be in his ear keeping him from being killed’ way. And, oh good, if that’s any indicator for how things are going to go, then he might be screwed.

Wednesday morning comes way too early for Ethan’s liking. His alarm goes off at three, and he very briefly considers throwing his phone across the room and ignoring his obligations. He doesn’t though— Kathryn’s ire honestly scares him just a bit more than Masterson’s does, and he really doesn’t feel like getting fired in the middle of the night and in the middle of a pay period.

So, Ethan drags himself out of bed, gets dressed, and lugs himself and his backpack downtown on a less than desirable subway route due to the hour of the night.

Even though his office building is already downtown, this training exercise requires him to go a handful of blocks further than he would normally go. The last time Ethan was _this_ far downtown was when he’d done training when he’d been recruited. The sun isn’t up yet, so the spring chill still clings to the air, dew to the grass he passes on his detour through Battery Park. Luckily, the warm coffee in his hands staves the chill out of his gloveless fingers and makes the morning just a bit more bearable.

Despite the early hour, a few people do roam the streets, subscribing to the notion of the city that never sleeps. Some have business suits on, briefcases in their hands as they disembark from various forms of mass transit. Walking up to the South Ferry subway station, Ethan sees a few homeless people slumped in the shadows under the overhangs, out of view from officers who cared enough to shoo them away.

The area in front of the Battery Maritime Building, home to the Governor’s Island ferry, is near deserted. The building towers over the sidewalk and street below it, a force of downtown since the early 1900s. The lights that usually shine from the tall windows of the offices on the second floor are still dark, the signs usually set out at the curbs advertising prices and directions still inside the interior offices for a few more hours yet. The quietness, though broken by the sounds of cars behind him entering and exiting the underpass, lends an eerie air to the surroundings, if only due to the architecture of the building. It feels vastly out of place down here among the concrete and construction equipment.

No one pays attention to the few people, himself included, who periodically approach the side gate of the dark building. They slip in using the key given to them by the front desk and follow the ramp inside down towards the water and the ferry, deviating at the last second to a smaller boat outfitted in coast guard insignias.

Down here without the main overhead lights turned on, security lights guide Ethan in the correct direction to a waiting coast guard captain, not much older than himself. Tyler and Kathryn are already on board and waiting, sitting atop two crates in the boat that likely hold lifejackets and buoys.

Tyler’s outfitted in basic tactical gear without looking like he’s about to rob a bank so as to arouse public concern. Ethan imagines that the bright orange jacket offsets the black beanie holding down his curls and thick-soled black combat boots. Only a supremely stupid criminal would leave to commit a crime in such an identifiable article of clothing.

They both afford Ethan smiles, Kathryn’s slightly more tired as she desperately drinks her coffee. Kathryn’s dressed down from the office, but she still has an air of professionalism about her with her hair kept up and her backpack sat on the ground between her feet while they remain docked. Ethan hates carrying his equipment on his back throughout the city already, let alone having it with him on a rocking boat in the East River.

As Ethan’s settling down next to Kathryn, fingers thrumming with energy, Mark’s form emerges from the black, Amy close behind. Unlike Tyler, they do look ready to rob a bank or commit some other form of grand larceny.

Amy’s decked out head to toe in black with her hair french-braided down her back, her hands initially stuffed into her black cargo jacket. From her mid-sized backpack, she now pulls out her credentials for the captain, followed by a handgun that she tucks into the back of her waistband beneath her jacket.

Mark’s dressed similarly but with just a simple long-sleeved shirt on and a neck gaiter pooled around his neck until he has a use for it later. Not that Ethan stares, but he notices the way Mark’s shirt pulls across his chest and abruptly realizes that he’s got a bullet-proof vest on as well.

“Is this not a training exercise? You guys look like you’re all ready for battle,” Ethan can’t help but ask, feeling like he somehow missed the memo. Sure, he may just be an analyst, but he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, a pair of converse he wouldn’t mind scuffing up a bit.

Mark looks up from tucking a gun of his own into his waistband, startled as if he hadn’t seen Ethan there. “Just because it’s a training exercise doesn’t mean we treat it any different. These are all paintball guns. There’s going to be a whole other team trying to make us fail out there. Did you not do this when you were recruited the first time?”

“We did, I guess it just wasn’t this high-stakes.” His voice trails off, cowed slightly by Mark’s confidence. Back when Ethan had done it as general orientation, there had been fifty field agents and several analysts all switching on and off. It was still serious but much more low stakes as opposed to metaphorical life or death.

“Well, this’ll be as real as it gets without the threat of dying, but let’s act as if that were a consequence anyway, sound good?” And then Mark’s walking into the captain’s cabin, leaving Ethan feeling like he’s just been gut-punched at four in the morning in a boat slip on the East River.

It’s not like he’d expect Mark to know about Brian or what had happened the last time Ethan had been in someone’s ear, but it still feels personal almost. Mark, Amy, and Tyler are from a completely different sector, they _wouldn’t_ know about Brian because people die in this line of work. It happens, especially in their own area.

Ethan feels a warm, solid hand on his knee and looks down, tracing it back to Kathryn, who’s smiling reassuringly.

“You’re fine. You ready to do this?”

The rumble of the boat’s engine startles Ethan, but he nods and tries to smile back even if his stomach feels like it’s in his throat.

Somewhere around the half-way point when Amy, Tyler, and Mark begin double-checking their gear, it occurs to Ethan that these really are the best of the best. Masterson, or maybe even someone above Masterson, has put the five of them together for a reason, and it’s bigger than anything Ethan’s ever been a part of. The notion is slightly intimidating.

The streetlights and security lights overlooking the water are the only sources of light on Governor’s Island when they disembark from the boat ten minutes later. They all file up the gangplank and come to a stop in front of Masterson and some other high-ranking officer Ethan’s not yet met.

“Good morning, all. I trust your ride was smooth enough. Here’s how this will go. Agents Nestor and Knutson will be stationed here inside the security offices. Nestor, you’ll be in Agent Fischbach’s ear and Knutson will be primarily in Nelson and Shied’s. 

“You two will have access to the CCTV on the island and blueprints of all major buildings. Your goal is to direct Fischbach, Nelson, and Shied through the island and retrieve two different artifacts hidden at either end of the school that spans the middle of the island. The only entrance available is through the middle archway.

“Enemy agents are patrolling the grounds, and their goal is to stop you. If anyone receives a shot to a major point of contact, you will be instructed to return here to the welcome center and wait out the rest of the mission. Is that clear? The exercise will conclude when either everyone is dead or when the artifacts make it back here to the welcome center. Any questions?”

Silence falls upon the group, and Masterson smiles. “Excellent. Nestor and Knutson, if you’ll follow me. I’ll show you to your stations. When both of you are settled, you’ll let the others know. Good luck.”

As Ethan’s being led away, he watches the other agent in charge hand out the short-range earpieces they’ll use to communicate. Just based on the boat ride over, Ethan thinks that there’s no way this ends well.

The security office they’re led to is about how Ethan remembers from a few years prior. There is a bank of computer monitors on one wall that displays feeds of the island both outside and of some indoor areas. Even from a quick glance at a few of the screens, he can see that the grounds are crawling with enemy agents. 

Masterson doesn’t stick around for long before he’s leaving Ethan and Kathryn alone with their electronics.

“Did you do much in the school when you went through recruitment?” Ethan asks as he practically crawls beneath a desk to plug his laptop into the wall. He only narrowly misses driving the palm of his hand down onto an upturned screw on the floor.

The sound of Kathryn’s computer booting up behind him fills the momentary silence. “Just a bit of the basement. Never to either end. The place is massive.”

“I’m not convinced people who work in there have even been across the whole thing,” Ethan grunts, pushing himself up and narrowly avoiding smacking his head into the edge of the desk. “ _And_ we have to direct three people the entire way while keeping them alive. It’s a suicide mission!”

“I believe the word is ‘test’. Probably trying to see how far they can push us while still keeping us acting as a unit. I heard from another analyst that Mark’s notoriously hard to work with in the field, so that should make it fun.”

Ethan can’t believe his luck, honestly. He tosses Kathryn a deadpan look and shoves the earpiece into his ear without looking. “Godspeed.”

The beginning of the exercise goes smoothly enough, which is already smoother than Ethan initially predicted based on their lack of familiarity with each other. From where they start out at the docks, the western route to the school, admittedly the quicker and direct route that has less cover, is crawling with enemy agents. So, they’re forced to sneak around the eastern route and cut through the old military fort that sits upon a hill in the middle of a large, treeless field. Despite how exposed they are, Mark, Amy, and Tyler make quick work of the guards stationed in and around the walls.

Ethan watches from one of the mounted cameras on a fort wall as he informs Mark of an enemy agent who’s crouched on the other side of the corner from where Mark stands. Mark spends almost no time sneaking around a wall and elbowing the guard in the face before shooting him twice in the chest with his handgun. At such a close range, the shot marks a kill, the guard lying on the stone motionless with two closely grouped paintball splatters on his vest. The glance that Mark affords the camera is charged with _something_ that sends a rush of heat up the back of Ethan’s neck. He pointedly clears his throat and looks ahead to the next camera, letting Mark know that Tyler’s just taken care of the guards stationed there.

Across the terrain, Mark, Amy, and Tyler move as one, an entity all of its own that Ethan finds mesmerizing to watch through the night vision of the cameras situated on buildings they pass quickly. He feels in-sync with them all, Mark in particular as the latter takes Ethan’s words into account with confidence and grace, as if he has the camera feeds and blueprints in his head as well— as if he already trusts Ethan with his life. Which should be ridiculous after all, right?

The three of them make it to the edge of a row of large, old houses that face across two fields and a narrow paved lane, maybe fifty yards from the archway of the school. The fields and lane are lined with towering trees beginning to bloom in the spring temperatures, obscuring an uninterrupted sightline, but their presence also provides them cover from being spotted immediately. 

They pause, grouped on the side of one of the large house’s curving porch. Amy’s a few feet ahead of them, near the front steps of the porch with a pair of night-vision goggles, watching the pairs of guards on either side of the arch— the primary entrance to the nearly two-block long building that they have to get through.

Ethan has eyes on the camera located in the archway and facing out towards the row of houses. In his ear, he listens to the group discuss possible ways in— ways that don’t end with any of them being disqualified from the exercise. In the security office, Kathryn gets up to stand over Ethan’s shoulder, looking over blueprints of the first floor of the school.

“Are we sure that all the side entrances are locked?” He hears Amy say. They’ve opened up the mics for a few minutes to brainstorm together. “The sides of the building look relatively clear with the least risk of injury.”

“Masterson said they would be. There’s no point in risking one of us just to confirm a guideline,” Tyler reasons, and Ethan silently thanks his level head.

Ethan sighs when he and Kathryn come up empty. “We’ll need a distraction, draw the guards away from the archway,” he mumbles to Kathryn before pressing the microphone.

“What do the three of you have in terms of explosives?” Ethan asks Mark, waiting with bated breath as Mark asks the others.

The news that they’ve got a few flashbangs and smoke grenades is better than nothing, but then again, Ethan doesn’t exactly know what he’d been hoping for. This isn’t a real mission, and they can’t exactly blow up a historical building as a part of a training exercise.

They spend about five minutes deliberating before deciding that they’ll use the flashbangs as a distraction, thrown to one end of the building so as to draw the guards away from the entrance. From there, most of them should be gone, one of the three able to shoot any remaining guards who stay at the archway. Amy declares that she’ll take care of the grenades and join Mark and Tyler as they’re entering through the arch.

It’s risky, and Ethan doesn’t like the gap of time it leaves the enemy agents to reassemble on the inside, but it’s their best bet to actually _get_ inside. With how well they’ve been working together thus far, Ethan’s gaining confidence they can finish this intact. He wants to show Masterson that the five of them were the right choices to eventually take down this gang of forgers.

Halfway across the open space where they come to the lane running through the field, Amy splits off from Mark and Tyler, making her way through the trees and about halfway down into position. Everything happens rather quickly from there.

Kathryn resumes her spot at her computer monitors and directs Amy while Ethan guides Tyler and Mark into position. His eyes flit back and forth from the camera looking out towards where he knows Mark and Tyler are hidden to the split-screen showing the immediate interiors of the doors off the archway.

Ethan feels like he’s barely breathing as Kathryn tells Amy to go ahead on her mark. The bangs set off an odd echo through the three microphones of varying intensity causing Ethan to jump, his fingers tapping in surprise at the keyboard.

As soon as the guards have run, Ethan gives Mark and Tyler the go-ahead, the cameras all clear. But just as soon as Mark’s hands have touched the door handle, a body rounds the corner of the interior camera, gun out and at the ready.

Ethan shouts, yelling to stop, to hide, and get down, but after acknowledging Ethan and visibly tightening his grip on his gun, Mark yanks the door open, only to be met with the muzzle of a rifle and a paintball straight to the chest.

Mark stumbles back, tripping on a sewer grate, and falls onto his back, a frustrated, “fuck,” muttered into the microphone as Tyler shoots the offending agent instead.

“God _damnit_ , Mark,” Ethan can’t help but grunt. It’s blatantly clear to Ethan now why they’re training together. For as much as they’re able to work seamlessly during parts, it’s clear now that Mark doesn’t trust his judgment completely yet. And why should he? Kathryn’s sources were evidently on the right track with Mark’s obstinance, and now here they are, paying the price. They’re down a man and aren’t even in the building yet.

Ethan’s still fuming when Amy runs up to the scene, cursing at Mark who Ethan can see has now pulled himself up and is holding the door open like a gentleman.

“I know, I know. You can yell at me later. I’ll be back at security, and you can yell at me when you guys win. Tyler’s already inside.” Ethan hears Mark tell her, and then he’s closing the door and walking away with his arms up in surrender.

It’s just training, Ethan knows that, no one’s actually dead, and yet he’s finding it hard to school his breathing, to get his thoughts back in line so he can take some of the weight off Kathryn who’s currently guiding Tyler and Amy down a hallway as carefully as she can.

Mark will be back any minute, and Ethan can’t honestly say how he’ll react once he sees him. The least he can do is help Kathryn while he can.

Ethan’s just getting into clearing the next hallway when Mark shoulders his way into the room, sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a bright pink paint splatter over his heart. He looks annoyed and exhausted, but Ethan doesn’t have the brainpower or patience to deal with him right now. So, as he tells Tyler the hallway should be clear, he lets his eyes pass back over Mark and back to his computer wordlessly. Well— almost.

“If you’re going to sit in here, you’re gonna be quiet, got it?” Ethan doesn’t honestly know where the burst of attitude comes from other than born out of annoyance that they lost their head agent over a bull-headed move. This can’t be a habit because Ethan won’t be able to handle the inevitable consequences. Not again.

With his attention on the computers, Ethan doesn’t see Mark nod, but the latter doesn’t leave either. At least that’s a promising sign.

Throughout the rest of the exercise, Mark remains seated somewhere behind Ethan, quiet apart from the occasional clinking of ice in his water bottle as he drinks. The silence is a blessing, but Ethan knows he needs to get the two of them on the same page so that this doesn’t happen again.

Thankfully, there aren’t any more hiccups for the rest of the exercise. Tyler and Amy manage to acquire both desired objects— briefcases full of fake money— and make it back over the threshold of safety while narrowly avoiding an enemy agent chasing them. Ethan doesn’t think his palms have ever sweat that much.

Tyler and Amy meet them in the security office while Ethan and Kathryn begin to pack up. The two agents saunter in, tired eyes masked by wide smiles and heaving chests. Amy punches Mark’s paintball splatter, digging into the bruise that’s no doubt beginning to bloom.

“That’s for being a dumbass and not listening to your analyst. I better not have to finish a training exercise without you again or I’ll kill you for real. Are we clear?” Mark grimaces but nods and rubs at his chest.

“You’re the boss.”

Ethan, who’d been staring, curious to see what Amy would do, reverts his eyes back to the cable he’d been wrapping into a manageable coil when Mark turns his head and makes eye contact. Not that he doesn’t trust Amy’s ability to knock some sense into Mark with a few words, but Ethan realizes he’s still going to have to bare his soul a bit to drive any point home.

Getting back to the mainland is a relatively quiet affair. The sun’s coming up, the workers of Manhattan with it. Tyler takes his beanie off his head and shrugs back into his orange jacket, easily blending into the crowd of commuters they’ll run into nearly moments after stepping onto the street.

Amy pulls her hair out of its braid, combing her fingers through her hair to ungroup it and make it look a bit more casual. Her jacket sleeves get rolled up to a fashionable length as well. When Mark takes off the neck gaiter and pulls out a light blue raincoat from his backpack, folded into a small triangle, Ethan almost laughs out of disbelief more than anything.

Realistically, even though he’s never worked with agents from the Clandestine Service, Ethan knows their field of work. They’re meant to be able to blend in and disappear, but when he watches Mark pull literal contacts out of his eyes in the middle of choppy waters and push a pair of square frames up his nose a bit thinner than Ethan’s own, he’s at a loss for words. These people are chameleons. 

They split off at South Ferry station. Amy hops in an uber, Tyler and Kathryn go down into the station to catch their respective trains, and Mark follows Ethan through the park. They don’t say anything for the first few minutes. Ethan wonders what the businessmen and women think of them. They probably just look like they’ve been out jogging or something

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me,” Ethan says, watching Mark out of the corner of his eye. Wound down from the stress of Mark not following his directions, Ethan finds it a little easier to joke around with him. He’s not sure yet if that’s a good or bad thing.

Mark watches the path in front of him and cocks a half-smile in return. “I’m catching the 5 train, don’t you worry a little hair on that pretty head of yours.” It’s perfectly innocent but something jumps in Ethan’s stomach anyway. For whatever reason, he doesn’t tell Mark he’s going to the same station.

Mark’s silent for another minute before he clears his throat, breaking the silence around them. “I wanted to apologize for ignoring you out there and getting myself shot. I was being impulsive like I normally am sometimes. But it occurred to me that you don’t know how to handle me like that yet. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think much of you until I was sat in there watching you direct Tyler and Amy. How old are you anyway?”

Ethan tries not to be offended at the almost-sorta backhanded compliment. “I’m twenty-four. I know that’s young to be head-anything but I know what I’m doing. I need you to trust me, and I know we don’t really know each other that well yet, but my primary goal in there is to get you out, not with the mission objective at the end of the day, okay?”

Even though Ethan’s got his eyes trained on the ground, watching his feet step over cracks in the sidewalk, he can feel Mark’s eyes on him. “Yeah,” Mark murmurs, barely audible. If Ethan weren’t trying so hard to keep his voice steady and clear, he’d chance a glance up to see what Mark’s face looked like. He doesn’t though.

“I promise it won’t happen again, Ethan. We worked well together tonight. But I think we can do better.”

This time when Ethan does force his eyes up to look at Mark, he sees the other man smiling. He’s right, Ethan thinks. If they were this good barely acquainted, they’d be practically unstoppable once they were actually friends.

Within three weeks, they’re given a time and a location. The location, it turns out, is LaGuardia, destination Quebec City, Quebec. A part of Ethan is relieved that the plan is still Quebec, grateful for the familiarity even if he’s told that they’ll be working out in the wildlife preserve where there’s been activity from one Calvin Daniels, the second or third in command of the forgery ring. Ethan doesn’t remember as well as he should. 

They’re placed on a private company plane big enough that it somehow houses a small office in the rear— big enough that someone could use it if they were in the middle of an assignment or needed to take an important call but tiny enough that it might as well be a bathroom stall with no toilet or sink. Ethan can only imagine the type of shit that’s happened on this plane in its lifetime— can only imagine the life or death situations that have occurred in that office. He can practically feel the ghosts of orders saturated into the thin carpet.

He and Kathryn sit across from each other when they board, facing a table about the size of one he’d find on a train. The first thing Ethan does is pull out his laptop. There are some files he needs to look over. He’s not sure how long he’ll have once they land, and it’s a good bit of information that he’s put off reading until now.

Mark, Amy, and Tyler all board the plane shortly thereafter, Mark laughing at something someone’s said as they find their seats. On the other side of the aisle sit sets of double seats facing each other, much like Ethan’s and Kathryn’s, the table a bit bigger to accommodate the extra space. Ethan watches out of the corner of his eye as Mark and Amy sit down on one side with Tyler sitting on the other. Amy says hello to the two of them, and then Ethan’s largely left alone to pop his earbuds into his ears and tune everyone else out.

At one point, he thinks he sees Mark go to get his attention but stop himself at the last moment. Ethan should want to interact with him, get to know the guy whose life he’s going to be protecting, but the cynical part of him can’t help but think about how much more painful that would be if something were to happen. The thought becomes so pervasive, so overwhelming with possible scenarios, that Ethan suddenly feels the need to get up, nearly knocking his laptop off its precarious position on the armrest. He makes a break for the small office, needing to be alone, he tells himself, pushing his glasses up his nose as he goes, pointedly avoiding Kathryn’s concerned gaze.

The process of calming himself down is one he’s becoming far too acquainted with during recent months, almost like an old friend by this point as Ethan practically falls onto the bench placed across the small back wall. He practically throws his glasses onto the equally as small counter before bending forward to catch his head in his hands between his knees. 

If the smallest thing was going to set him off in the field and they’ve only made it to the airplane, this was going to be a disastrous assignment no matter how well he and Mark worked together. Ethan needs to get his feelings under control and _fast_ before the rest of the team comes to him with questions he wasn’t prepared to answer.

A few minutes later, as Ethan’s beginning to feel a bit calmer, he hears a quiet knock on the office door. It’s probably Kathryn— there’s a 90% chance that it’s her, but the possibility that it’s not, keeps him from inviting them in. Instead, he calls out, “yeah?”

“Hey, it’s me. You okay in there?” Thankfully, it is in fact Kathryn, which means she understands. Just because she understands though doesn’t mean he’s in the mood to rehash it all at 41,000 feet up in the air. Rather, Ethan gets to his feet and takes a few deep breaths before opening the door and stepping back out into the main cabin.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just needed a minute.” He smiles, but he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes— can tell that Kathryn notices as well. She doesn’t say anything though and lets him pass.

None of the other team members watch him as he walks back to his seat, nor do they ask him about why he’d abruptly left. It’s a small fact that Ethan’s grateful for, and as he settles into his seat and pulls his laptop back into his lap, he more or less distracts himself for the rest of the flight with various files.

They drive northeast from Quebec City, farther out than Ethan’s ever truthfully been. _So much for the familiarity,_ Ethan thinks as he watches the greenery pass out his window. They’re being stationed in a small house in a small town at the edge of the wildlife preserve, which even at first glance, looks far more serene than what Ethan thinks they deserve. 

Their house is three bedrooms with no specialized office area, but that shouldn’t matter too much considering their main purpose for being here is to survey, not to run any life or death operations. Amy and Kathryn decide to share one of the rooms while Tyler calls dibs on the single, meaning Ethan and Mark have to share the other double. It shouldn’t be an issue, Ethan thinks, because why would it? He’s slept in far more uncomfortable areas, and at least he has his own bed.

The town almost looks like it’s a bit small for them to fit in inconspicuously, but since Ethan sees a fair amount of tourists once they enter the town limits, they might manage to blend in. What doesn’t calm his nerves though are the signs that are 100% in French, a language he’s admittedly a bit rusty in, much to his detriment. At least their tenure here would serve as a means to brush up on it— the rest of the team would undoubtedly make sure of it.

Life existing in a small Canadian town where one only speaks half the language is interesting, to say the least. The team finds out that Ethan only knows minimal French after about a week and one failed trip to the store where Amy has to save him from an unfortunate run-in with the cashier. From that point on, they all take turns teaching him during off-hours. 

Tyler’s sessions are probably the most helpful in terms of new content and reinforcing previous concepts. Mark’s sessions are the least helpful because he’ll go off on a tangent in a foreign language that Ethan only ends up comprehending anywhere from a quarter to half of. Amy’s lessons fall somewhere in the middle which can be incredibly helpful depending on the day.

Ethan notices when he’s sitting with his headset on during particularly boring scouting missions that those are apparently good times for lessons, especially when it’s Mark and Amy laying on a forest floor watching a cabin a quarter mile away for any signs of movement through the scope of a sniper rifle. Sometimes they’re even non-negotiable because as soon as Ethan tries to shut them down, Mark will just transition into French and refuse to switch back until Ethan’s practically begging him to stop.

For the most part, it’s slow, boring work that makes Ethan half convinced that Masterson put them on this assignment to give them a chance to actually bond and get to know each other before the real shit started. It works, in any case.

They dig up dirt and watch practically every move that this Calvin Daniels makes around the surrounding area. It appears that he’s compiling resources and help for the supposed big job that Masterson had warned them about. In between the tails and sore eyes from staring at computer screens, Ethan grows closer to the team.

He learns that Mark’s a pretty good roommate who doesn’t snore and barely sleeps. Most nights, Ethan’s asleep before Mark comes to bed and is awake some time after him. Mark offers up some information, such as how long he’s been a part of the Clandestine Service (six years), and what some of his most notable cases have been thus far (practically most things he has to do overseas), but a lot of the more sensitive topics get glossed over with little explanation.

In return, Ethan offers up details on some of the more mundane parts of his life. He tells Mark where he grew up (Maine) and what got him into this line of work (the intersection of little desire to continue on a traditional IT path and meeting a recruitment officer at an undergrad career fair). He talks about some of his own most notable cases with some of the more troublesome agents that almost pale in comparison to Mark. Notably, he leaves out all mention of Brian, not trusting this fragile stability he’s built himself up with in the few weeks since they’ve all been out here.

Amy tells Ethan one night how she’s known Mark and Tyler for almost ten years at this point, since before they were all working together, which explains a lot about their closeness. He tells her as such, earning a soft smile as she almost appears to reminisce over something.

“Mark almost got himself killed one time, not because of anyone shooting at him, but because he wouldn’t slow the car down and wait for a train crossing for risk of losing the people we were tailing. He’s not usually that reckless though,” Amy hurries to clarify.

“Actually, I’ve noticed him acting a lot calmer ever since we signed onto the assignment. Maybe it’s his old age finally catching up to him, or maybe it’s something else.” She says the last statement somewhat cryptically as if it were obvious what that something else was, but if it’s obvious, Ethan has no clue. Something about the sentiment makes him almost a bit uneasy, but uneasy in a good way as if that made sense. Ethan’s not sure it does though when he thinks about it.

In truth, he’s still caught up on the whole almost getting killed by a train. Ethan can’t help but think Masterson might have made a mistake putting him in with this group of close friends.

They’re all in the middle of reconnaissance, Mark and Amy laid out at the edge of a rainy and cold forest again while they track the movements of some person of interest that’s meant to meet up with Daniels. Tyler’s a half-mile away watching the actual guy while Mark and Amy await his arrival at the cabin they’ve been watching for forever now. Allegedly, he’s tied up with the French government-- has some information that the gang will likely want. Nothing’s happening for now though because Ethan sits at the kitchen table listening to Mark talk to Amy about whatever tv show they’re watching. Ethan thinks they may just be talking about Parks and Rec, but he’s not really listening.

Barring the absence of a proper office and the furniture to go with it, Ethan’s curled up in a kitchen chair with a cup of coffee clutched between his hands while he stares at the soundwaves of their voices trailing across the computer screen. He watches the mesmerizing craggy peaks and valleys, the way he can practically tell Mark and Amy apart by now just from looking at a snapshot of their soundwaves.

Somewhere in this musing, the date hits Ethan in the face like a ton of bricks. He checks both his phone and the computer to make sure he’s not mistaken. It’s Brian’s birthday and somehow he’s completely forgotten.

As much as he wants to drop everything, curl up in bed and sulk over both the event and his own incompetence, Mark and Amy come first. Ethan can feel his mood plummet though, the fragile pedestal he’d built for himself growing cracks larger by the second. The quiet yet amused voices of Mark and Amy suddenly irritate him. Or is it jealousy— jealousy over the fact that they still have each other, that they’re still living and breathing entities?

Mark and Amy come home safe with not a scratch or suspicion to show for it, and Ethan can’t take it.

After greeting them, Ethan sneaks off to the balcony that sits outside the small attic/loft on the top floor of the house to be truly alone for the first time all day. He tries not to break, to not let the emotions that had been hiding slip out through the cracks that never fully healed now that he thinks about it. Whatever he’d done to make himself feel better in the past few weeks had all been an illusion. Of course, Ethan fails and a few tears escape past his lashes, though he quickly swipes them away as if he were hiding them from someone. Maybe the ‘someone’ is himself.

If Brian were here with him, Ethan’s positive the other man would punch him and tell him to pull it together, that Ethan would be fine and it’s stupid to miss him so much.

The chilly late spring breeze this far north dries Ethan’s face after a bit, and he’s much more on board with letting the numbness consume him. For a brief moment, he wonders if Kathryn knows but figures it’s just as likely she never knew— she never was as close as he and Brian were.

The creak of the balcony door getting stuck on its seal behind Ethan barely phases him, he’s so deep in his head. What he isn’t prepared for though is to see Mark settling himself down onto the cold wood decking, back against the equally cold siding.

Neither of them says anything for nearly a minute before Ethan sees Mark turn to look at him out of the corner of his eye. Something about the movement, about the conscientious caring nature that drove Mark to come out here quietly sets Ethan’s stomach buzzing even in the midst of his melancholy.

“What’s going on?” Mark murmurs, his head bowing a bit to seemingly try and catch Ethan’s gaze.

Truth be told, Ethan has thought once before how he’d tell Mark about Brian, but when he’d been unable to come up with a way that didn’t sound pitiful and self-serving, he’d banished the idea. Now, Ethan has no idea what to say, though he’s certain he won’t be able to say it with a neutral voice if he’s to tell the whole truth.

So, he goes for vague and simple. “It’s a friend’s birthday today, and I’m just missing him extra hard.” It’s not technically a lie, but Ethan wrings his hands together anyway where they’re propped on his knees in front of him.

“Is it someone you could call? I know what it’s like to be homesick for someone.” _Homesick for someone_. The phrase is so painfully accurate and hits Ethan like a gut punch he’s unprepared for. It’s so unexpected that Ethan doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop the audible sob that escapes past his lips.

It’s quick, and Ethan’s turned his head away from Mark, sweatshirt-covered hand coming up to muffle the noise he tries turning into a cough, but he knows he’s been found out.

“Oh.” It’s quiet, barely there, and Ethan can tell by the tone of his voice that he feels awful. “Ethan, I’m sorry. Is it… is it your old partner?”

And if Ethan had thought what Mark had said before had been unexpected, this truly feels out of left field for a completely different reason. How did he find out? Did he really go snooping through Ethan’s file? Did Masterson tell him? How long has he known for? Surely Mark hasn’t known since before Governor’s Island or else Ethan’s confident he wouldn’t have acted the way he had.

Belatedly, Ethan realizes he hasn’t said anything, nor has he moved his head back to being able to see Mark’s face out of the corner of his eye.

“Kathryn told me after I asked her what was up when you ran on the plane. Don’t be mad at her.”

Ethan couldn’t fathom being mad at Kathryn for even a minute. When he looks back towards Mark, he feels less on the verge of tears, rather feeling the bone-deep exhaustion that encompasses him now. “I should have told you. You trust me to keep you safe out there— the least you deserve to know is why I make the decisions I do. How much did she tell you?” Ethan doesn’t particularly want to talk about it, but he will if he needs to.

Mark looks like asking Ethan about it is the last thing he wants to do, but he speaks nevertheless. “She just told me the basics. But that’s all I need to know. You’re already in enough pain tonight.”

“His name was Brian and he was my best friend. He’s the reason why I get antsy during long silences on comms and why I need your trust so much. I can’t do that again.” It’s as honest as Ethan’s let himself be in a long time, and he thinks maybe Mark can tell.

Mark nods and leads his head back against the siding. “You never owed me an explanation, you know. And you never will.”

Ethan doesn’t really know how to respond, so he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his head fall to Mark’s shoulder, not second-guessing anything right now. He desperately needs another human’s contact, so he’ll tell himself that’s why he goes so willingly. Mark reaching out and pulling Ethan’s left hand off his knee and into a loose grip is unexpected, but welcome.

The gentle back and forth of Mark’s thumb over the backs of Ethan’s knuckles gives him something to focus on other than the numbness he feels. Mark’s a strong and steady presence next to him, the smell of his soap lingering to his skin after his recent shower.

They may sit there for minutes or hours before Mark speaks up, voice still low between them. “What was your favorite thing about him?” It’s almost timid as— if Mark were afraid to ask the question.

Ethan’s thought a lot about Brian in the past two months but for some reason, he has a tough time coming up with an answer right away. “Uhh..he had this way of lightening a stressful or tense situation that made you forget about what was going on around you. And he always knew when to distract someone, even if they were across the room minding their own business.” Ethan feels a bit of a smile break through his lips at the memories of Brian walking up to whatever poor soul he came across in the cafeteria and making them smile. He’s doing it now, even from beyond the grave.

Mark squeezes Ethan’s hand reassuringly before turning it over so Ethan’s palm faces up into the night sky. He tilts his head to watch their hands, captivated by how well his hand fits in Mark’s. Since when did he think of that— of how nice the warm weight feels? Ethan watches the way Mark’s thumb traces the most prominent lines of his palm. It almost tickles.

“Did you know the prominence of this line means you’re going to live a long and fulfilling life?” Mark sounds thoughtful as he traces the line that travels from Ethan’s index finger to right below his pinkie. He knows Mark’s full of shit, but Ethan can’t help but stare, weight pressed close to him.

“Mmm…” Ethan acknowledges, focusing on how soothing Mark’s thumb feels.

“Yeah. And this one,” he says, tracing the one circling the base of his thumb, “This one says you’re going to be very successful at your job. Lots of promotions in your future.”

Ethan doesn’t acknowledge Mark this time, just lets him keep talking.

“This one, now this one is interesting.” Mark raises Ethan’s hand closer to his face as if he needed to look closer. Ethan rolls his eyes good-naturedly at Mark’s antics. “This one says that you’re going to have a great love, one for the history books, and you’ll never be sad again.”

The buzzing in his stomach returns with force— he feels like he’s just gone off the edge of a rollercoaster and oh, he’s felt this before. Ethan shifts his gaze from their hands to look up at Mark and shouldn’t be as startled as he is to find Mark watching him with soft eyes.

All the moisture has seemingly evaporated from Ethan’s mouth at both Mark’s words and gaze. As much as the feral part of Ethan’s brain wants to ride this out, he does not want to get back on this ride of confusing and ambiguous feelings for a teammate. He’s still getting over how it ended last time to welcome it again.

So, Ethan does the only thing he can physically handle right now and turns it into a joke. “You’re so full of shit.” Notably, he barely whispers, doesn’t pull his hand away, or shift his body away from Mark. Ethan knows it’s going to take more than just telling himself to knock it off to get Mark off his mind. He also knows there’s an equally as likely chance that this will escalate until it’s too late. Ethan tries not to think of that option right now as he sits taking in the other man’s warmth.

For now, Ethan shifts his head back down to rest on Mark’s shoulder and basks in the light, fluttery feeling quickly taking over his body, keeping him warm in the Quebecois dusk.

It only gets worse from there, Ethan’s morose to discover. Suddenly, he finds himself overanalyzing routine and mundane interactions that he has with Mark and compares them with the rest of the team. He’s trying to pinpoint where the feelings start and stop nearly around the clock. This is different than with Brian. 

With Brian, there had been the occasional thought that had passed unbidden through Ethan’s head, but he was more and more sure that the love he felt for Brian was firmly platonic at the end of the day. And now here he is, feeling like he’s on a roller coaster every time he brushes hands with Mark.

Luckily, he isn’t given much time to ponder the newly realized development because they’re being told of their transfer to Paris within hours of tracking Clyde Daniels to the airport. In some ways, it’s a relief to Ethan. It’s an opportunity to throw himself into the mission again, into figuring out plans and infiltration tactics that don’t get anyone hurt. It’s all Ethan can do to focus his endless energy on something that isn't Mark.

They’re given a private plane again, though this one seems slightly bigger than the last one, probably so they’re able to make the trip easier. It’s big enough on the inside that the team spreads out this time, well aware of how much time and space they’re about to share in Paris. 

Amy shows Ethan the floorplan of the safe house in Paris they’re to stay in, and while Ethan doesn’t have a lot to base it on, he’s still surprised at the size. It’s a two-story townhouse with all the bedrooms upstairs and a spacious living area downstairs. The one downside that Ethan notices is that there’s only one full bathroom, but it’s certainly not the worst he’s ever dealt with. 

The plane ride is boring after the first hour once Ethan finishes reading the new articles and files he’s been given.

Tyler’s passed out— has been since the first forty-five minutes after takeoff— head slumped against the window across the aisle and a few rows up. Kathryn’s typing away on her computer across from him, and Mark and Amy are talking about something or other in the row ahead of Ethan, their backs to him. They’re both leaned over some piece of paper on the table between them, and the curious part of Ethan can’t help but wonder what it is.

Rationally, he knows it’s likely a map of the neighborhood their safe house is in, and they’re figuring out points of reference and reconnaissance markers. They have to be extra careful out here because if they lose these guys now, it could mean the end of the assignment.

For now, Ethan tries not to think about it because the weight of that is far too heavy to bear 41,000 feet up in the air over the Atlantic ocean.

Ethan wiles away the remaining hours by sleeping and scrolling through his phone, switching back and forth between games of Tetris and a random book he’d found on his phone that he’d never finished. It passes the time well enough.

That doesn’t mean that Ethan isn’t sighing in relief by the time the pilot is letting them know they’re a half-hour out from the airport. A few minutes later, Mark drops into the recently emptied seat across from Ethan as they begin their descent into Paris. He has a curious look on his face as Ethan sits back down from stowing his laptop in his backpack in the overhead bin.

“What? You’ll be able to see the Eiffel Tower from this side of the plane. Don’t think so highly of yourself.” The last part is said halfway through a smirk, one that lets Ethan know that maybe the sights aren’t the only reason he switched seats with Kathryn. Truth be told, Ethan doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“Really? I’ve never seen the Eiffel Tower before.” He goes with instead, deciding he will _not_ ponder over Mark’s feelings for him mere feet away.

“You’ve never been to Paris? You work for the CIA and they’ve never sent you to France?” Mark says it like he can’t believe it, as if it’s the silliest thing he’s ever heard of out of everything they’ve talked about in the two months it’s been since they’ve known each other.

Ethan shrugs. “I was domestic, and Paris isn’t exactly on U.S. soil— well unless we’re talking about Paris, Texas.”

Predictably, Mark rolls his eyes and directs his attention out the window at the slowly approaching ground. For a moment— just a moment, Ethan lets himself look, lets himself take in the slope of Mark’s nose, the way his eyes squint just so in the incoming sunlight. His hair is getting a little long, coming to just above the tops of his ears, and not for the first time, Ethan wonders what it’d feel like between his fingers.

Someone near him clears their throat suggestively as if to let him know that he’s not being nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. If Ethan weren’t so mortified all of a sudden, he might turn back to look, but instead, he turns his flaming face towards the window and watches for recognizable landmarks.

Despite them landing discreetly away from the main terminals, the law dictates they still go through customs, to stand in the ridiculously long “non-EU citizens” line that snakes around a large room filled with tourists of various nationalities.

Given that they’re all wearing civilian clothing, they all look relatively inconspicuous. They still split into two groups though: Kathryn, Tyler, and Ethan in one, and Mark and Amy about five people ahead of them in line. Ethan notices that Mark carries both his and Amy’s bags, smiling as she talks to him. Their cover is that they’re a vacationing couple, and Ethan thinks they certainly look it.

Kathryn, Tyler, and he are just meant to be three friends on a cross-continental trip, but Ethan finds himself spacing on some of the details as he watches Amy laugh particularly hard at something Mark says, her hand coming up to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

“Please, yearn a little harder,” Kathryn murmurs close to Ethan, scaring him sufficiently out of his head.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but once they do, Ethan’s a stuttering mess, nearly backing into the woman in front of him as he rounds on Kathryn. Tyler stands a foot or so away and looks confused.

“I am _not_. Leave me alone.” He’s at a loss to explain what he was really doing. Even if he managed to come up with something, he’s nearly positive Kathryn wouldn’t buy it.

Thankfully, she lets him off the hook with a roll of her eyes and a purse of her lips. To try and hide something from Kathryn was a fruitless endeavor, and Ethan realistically knows that.

So, to pass the time with his attention _not_ focused on Mark— and Amy by extension— Ethan chips some of the remaining nail polish from the other night off his nails. It makes a mess but at least he has evidence of tangible progress on something over what he’d get from warring with himself over Mark in his head.

They take two separate taxis down into the city to keep up appearances for just a bit longer. The drive isn’t too long, and Ethan watches the landscape pass by the window while Tyler makes short conversation with their driver.

In order to protect their anonymity, their taxi driver drops them off at a hotel about a block from the townhouse. The walk isn’t too bad, but Ethan’s tired and his back is beginning to hurt from the weight of his backpack on his shoulders. With each step, the walk grates on his nerves just the slightest bit more.

Ethan knows moderately what to expect of the townhouse that’s been turned into a CIA safe house thanks to Amy, but seeing it in person actually makes it real. Sure enough, the building they’re dropped off in front of is definitely more ornate than anything Ethan’s ever stayed in, even from the outside. Even on his most high-profile jobs, he’s been relegated to stay at more inconspicuous, cheaper hotels and safe houses.

After he takes in the building as a whole, the first individual thing Ethan notices is the front door, naturally. It certainly looks Parisian— rounded at the top with ornate wrought iron accents curving over and around the textured glass. The stone underneath his feet, that he’d walked on up to the front doors is smooth from decades of wear. It’s probably older than Ethan’s whole block at home.

“Come on city boy, let’s show you some culture,” Mark jests as he turns the key in the lock, the old, brass handle turning easily under his force.

Inside, the first thing Ethan notices is the grey marble entryway leading up to dark, old-looking wooden stairs that curve around the edge of the wall. Just looking at them, Ethan expects them to creak under the slightest amount of weight. He can only imagine how difficult it would be to sneak out if those were standing between him and the front door. Off to the right, he can see the large front windows that span the front wall letting in mid-morning light, see the dust motes dancing in the still air. There’s a dining table large enough for all five of them to fit and a couple of couches on the far wall that look too stiff to be comfortable. The entirety of the living and dining rooms are about as big as Ethan’s entire apartment back in New York, so if his mouth drops open in astonishment upon entering the foyer, then he can’t really be blamed for it.

“Kitchen’s back through there,” Amy pipes up from behind Ethan, squeezing her way out from around him and walking towards the stairs. She’s pointing in the direction of the stiff sofas, likely indicating that it’s just beyond the wall that juts out halfway into the room and hugs the far side of the table. “Bedrooms and office are upstairs.”

“I think I heard there are only four bedrooms?” Kathryn asks. She’s walked into the living room, peering out through the far window and looking down at the street below. Their townhouse constitutes the first two floors with someone else occupying the third and fourth floors above them. There’s a basement below them, so they’re elevated from the roadside by about half a story.

The realization that there are four bedrooms and five of them results in Tyler and Mark not so subtly sneaking away and walking up the stairs two at a time, both probably not too keen on sharing. Ethan should care about the idea of sharing for the foreseeable future again, but his backpack suddenly weighs heavy on his shoulders, calling him to the office where he can finally put it down.

True to Ethan’s initial evaluation, the stairs do creak something fierce, and just being near them evokes a sense memory of old, mildewy attics he’s spent many childhood days in at his grandparents’ house. Out of everything he’s seen so far, it’s odd the stairs are the most obviously old things here. At the same time, they lend a sense of character to the modernized space, just enough to wonder what this place was like when it had been built.

Upstairs, the first thing he notices is several doors lining a decently narrow hallway. There’s a bathroom on his right, which is nice to know, and then an opened door halfway down the hallway. Sure enough, it’s the office, or what Ethan thinks is supposed to pass as one.

He notes the soundproofing tiles lining the walls, meant to try and keep whatever happens in here away from the attention of the people living above them who are likely not employed in the same field of work as the residents of Ethan’s townhouse.

The room isn’t the smallest he’s ever worked in, but it’s certainly not big or spacious. Along the long wall that sits to his left as Ethan walks into the room is a desk built into the wall that spans the length up to where the edge of the window sits practically in the corner, cutting off the bottom of the window sill. A part of Ethan wonders if this room, as small and narrow as it is, isn’t a newer addition with space taken from both the rooms on either side of it to create a workable space.

On the desk are six monitors with their power cords wrapped around their bases, decidedly _not_ plugged into the three towers sat next to them, also very not plugged in. Ethan groans to himself and drops his backpack into the shitty office chair that looks to be about ten years old. He’d probably be better off using one of the dining room table chairs.

Kathryn finds Ethan a little later while he’s under the desk plugging cords into the wall and validates him in his annoyance if her groan upon entering is anything to go by. This is going to be a long assignment.

“Tyler and Mark decided they’d share the room, so I think you have one of the ones that back up this room to yourself.”

In all honesty, Ethan assumed he’d get the short end of the stick being the last one to choose, so the fact that he’s not sharing is a bit surprising.

“Oh, don’t think everyone’s just that nice,” Kathryn rushes to input with a poorly hidden sly smile on her face as she bends down to plug in a monitor under the desk. “Mark pretty much told everyone that you’d be getting the room closest to the office because he values his life and wants you close to a computer in case something happens unexpectedly.”

Ethan doesn’t know what to do with that, so he elects to drop it and not acknowledge the way it makes him feel, or what the true thought process that went into Mark sacrificing his privacy for the second time on this assignment was.

Once they’re all settled, Masterson reaches out to let them know the places of interest to the gang based on other agents and intel from around the city, though there’s a 95% chance the big job they’ve been talking about will take place at the Louvre. He tells them that while he’s waiting on more intel from a source, that they should focus their efforts on the Louvre— mapping and exploring its enormous galleries— specifically on the French and Italian floors. Ethan almost chokes at the plural form of floor.

So, the plan for the very next morning, while they’re all still riding the wave of moving forward across time zones, is to scout the Louvre and take as many photos and notes of security measures as they can. This half of the assignment, surrounded by an urban city space, might not be so bad after all.

Ethan’s aware he’s never been to France, is aware of how things are different from home, but now that he’s sitting in the vast courtyard of the Louvre, staring up at the towering, pale, and ornate stone walls that hold priceless artifacts behind its walls, Ethan’s not sure he had even the slightest idea of what the country held.

A fair amount of tourists mill about the open expanse of paving stones that line the courtyard around and up to the iconic glass pyramid, snapping photos and taking in the sights much like himself. He’s sitting on the ledge of the granite-lined fountain near the smaller pyramid, snapping the occasional photo as Mark and Amy are off to one side still pretending to act like a couple taking photos together, Kathryn and Tyler doing the same on the opposite side a ways down. Ethan feels like the step-child, the odd man out as he’s left to try and get photos himself to use for later planning.

As much as he tries to act like he’s being put out when any one of them turns to him, Ethan can’t deny how good the open air feels with the sun on his face and the slight breeze rustling the bit of skin on the back of his neck that pokes out from under his hoodie. He feels rested, up early due to the six-hour time difference, and ready to get into the reconnaissance mode. 

Sometime later, Mark and Amy walk up to him, bright smiles on their faces, hands shoved into their jacket pockets and arms noticeably not intertwined. They look at him as if they’re looking at their little brother— the thought makes Ethan want to curl up and die a little. Kathryn and Tyler walk back up not too long after, Tyler kicking at the upturned soles of Ethan’s feet when he gets close enough. 

“You ready to check this place out from the inside?”

Living in New York, Ethan’s no stranger to large and elaborate museums housing priceless works and artifacts. That being said, the grand staircases in the Louvre that Ethan walks up now rival The Met in several ways. The museum itself is almost twice the age as The Met, though the building itself is twice as old as that still— Ethan’s very American brain isn’t big enough to conceptualize age like that.

The paintings surrounding him as they walk through the galleries and hallways are nothing short of mesmerizing. A lot of them that he knows well are either larger or smaller than he’d expected.

They’ve reconvened loosely as a group and are meant to be walking the galleries and observing the visible security measures as inconspicuously as they can, posing as innocent tourists. And yet, Ethan can’t help but look for too long at Renaissance pieces he’d only ever learned about in school.

Ethan knows he’s been staring for too long when Mark sidles up next to him while the former watches people walk past a Botticelli as if it were nothing. “See something you like? Maybe I’ll grab it for you and blame it on the forgers. They’ll never know.”

The smile that breaks out on Ethan’s face is way too conspicuous in the low hum to the gallery. Glancing over at Mark with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, he sees the older man without a trace of humor on his face. Ethan forgot how unsettling Mark could be.

“You’re ridiculous,” Ethan settles on, trying desperately to wipe the smile off his face and rolling his shoulders back to give himself one of the few missing inches between himself and Mark. He was never as good at hiding his emotions behind a straight face. “No, I just learned about all these in school, so finally seeing them in person is a little distracting. All of these people are just walking past as if they don’t realize they’re not in the presence of masterpieces.”

He turns his head back to the paintings and tries not to pay attention to how Mark turns in his direction, watching him watch the timeless pieces. “You did art?” Mark sounds surprised.

“A bit. My parents were into it, and I took a few classes in undergrad. Always enjoyed the history aspect more than making it myself though.” Ethan can feel Mark still watching him through it all. A part of him wants to turn and catch Mark in the act— see what he looks like when he’s caught staring with no guard up. Another part of Ethan, the rational and sane part, elects to ignore Mark’s gaze, lets him look to his heart’s content, as much as it makes Ethan’s stomach do all sorts of obnoxious somersaults.

“Hey, love birds, come on, we’re moving on.” Immediately, Ethan’s gaze is ripped from his blank stare at the Boticelli.

Turning to see who’s so rudely called them out for standing together, Ethan should have guessed it would be Amy, grinning like she’s just walked in on them in a very compromising position. Through the rushing in his ears, he hears Mark splutter some response, though all Ethan does, in turn, is crack a half-smile, tighten his arms closer to his chest and follow after Tyler and Kathryn who are already practically through the doorway to the next gallery.

Kathryn glances at his red face when she sees him but says nothing.

From there, Ethan does a much better job at balancing awe with his actual job. There are cameras in every corner of every room, which isn’t a surprise. It just means he’s going to have to do a better job being impartial in the ones he watches and be okay with not having his eyes on Mark and Tyler the whole time. The thought alone almost makes him nauseous.

Ethan also notices the heat and pressure sensors lining each and every piece of art. He figures that even the presence of a strong breeze would set the sensors off.

On a few occasions in certain galleries, Ethan notes sensors at the doorways, though after a few, he thinks it’s likely just the galleries where the more expensive pieces hang. He says as much to Mark and watches as the latter’s eyes immediately go to the archway they’d just walked through.

“Hmm that’ll just complicate matters,” he muses before likely typing it into his phone. God, it’s a good thing he’d come with and not left Amy, Mark, and Tyler alone.

A few hours later, Ethan’s got a phone full of notes and pictures, as well as thoroughly dead feet. It’s a good thing they leave when they do because Ethan swears he’s only minutes away from making Tyler carry him on his back. One of the bad things about his aching feet is that after he lets them rest by sitting down on the train for a few minutes, they hurt ten times more when he stands up again. Tyler does offer to carry him then if Mark will hold Ethan’s backpack, which the other does with little pestering.

As Tyler’s depositing Ethan onto one of the couches in the apartment, Amy’s phone pings with an email, likely with research the agency had been doing from the comfort of their very unlocked and unrestricted computers back at one of the offices. There is only so much Ethan and Kathryn can do with a VPN and hardline computers from out in the field.

“French intelligence has had eyes on the forgers around the fifth arrondissement. There’s sufficient reason to believe that’s where they’re stationed. Out of one of the old villas that are being renovated.” Amy reports after taking a seat at one of the barstools.

“Anywhere specific? That’s a lot of ground to cover with three of us.” Mark replies from the other end of the couch.

“Hey, I could do some low-stakes help. I can sit at a cafe table with a laptop that’s right by one of the universities, so I’d blend right in.” Ethan defends. He knows it’s not exactly in his job description, but surely anything to throw suspicion off Amy, Mark, or Tyler would be beneficial.

Clearly, Mark has other thoughts. “You couldn’t walk around a museum for a full day doing low-impact work. Tyler had to carry you home from the train.”

“What— walking is different than sitting!” Ethan tries to defend, and luckily Amy comes to his rescue.

“No, Ethan’s right. It might help right now to have him closer to the center of this as a fourth pair of eyes on the ground. Plus, I’m sure we could make him fit right in over in that part of town.”

Truthfully, Ethan’s not 100% sure if Amy means that as a good or bad thing. Kathryn and Tyler are nodding along though, so he decides he’ll take the win.

When Amy had said he’d fit in at one of the cafes in the middle of all the universities, Ethan had misunderstood just how much he would until Amy pulled the hoodie off his shoulders, replacing it with a knit cardigan and shoved a decent shirt on him that wasn’t a graphic t-shirt.

Now, sitting with his computer on a street corner and trying to blend in, Ethan notices how many other people around him are doing the same. He’s got four people in his ear though, which he can guess the others don’t. Even sitting out here though, Ethan can do useful stuff on his computer, and if he runs into any snags, Kathryn’s back at the apartment with the higher computing power.

“Wanna play a game?” Mark asks almost as soon as he’s walked around a corner away from the cafe, disappearing into the crowds of people. Ethan almost groans at what could possibly come out of his mouth.

“You’ve been learning French. Let’s put those lessons to the test and see how well you can speak French through this afternoon.”

“Mark…” Ethan hears Amy sigh.

“What? It’s not like he should be talking a lot anyway. I thought he was doing _homework_. You look like a university student, so shouldn’t you look _and_ sound the part?”

Ethan absolutely hates that Mark has a point. “Fine. I hate you, but I guess you’ve got a point there.” He’s sure that he looks a little odd sitting at his small table and talking to himself, even though people do it all the time. 

In his ear, he thinks he hears Mark laugh at the same time that Amy reinforces her sigh. “Alright you two,” Tyler interjects instead. “Make sure you’re actually doing your jobs and report anything of note.”

Due to the nature of the very not academic program running on his computer, Ethan’s made sure that his back is to a wall with no risk of being seen, yet still visible enough to be able to see around him without being too obvious.

Even though he’s studied up on the few people he’s watching out for, Ethan’s got a computer program connected through the rear camera his computer has that’s scanning the various facial angles of the people passing within a reasonable distance from his table.

It’s a newer piece of equipment he’d not been able to use adequately yet, but as of now, it seems to be keeping up with the bursts of activity that ebb and flow.

For the most part, students are who pass his table at this point in the day. Well, students and tourists. There are a few older people who appear to actually be working, likely going to lunch— on a break from their jobs, but that doesn’t stop Ethan from keeping an eye out.

Tyler asks him about a half-hour later how his station is, partly to check up, and partly, Ethan suspects, to make him keep his cover and answer in French. A stray thread from the sweater he’s wearing brushes the underside of his jaw as a breeze blows through the streets.

Ethan answers Tyler as quickly and as fluently as he can so as to not stick out like a sore thumb. Tyler speaks slow enough that he doesn’t get completely lost immediately. When Mark inevitably gets on the mic, Ethan’s doubtful he’ll fare as well.

Just as he’s telling Tyler that he’s all clear, his computer chimes from the table. Ethan’s set the program to notify him whenever it detects a facial match to the photos of the gang members he’d loaded into it. A quick glance at the screen and then up in front of him causes him to freeze midway through whatever he’d been saying.

 _“You good, Ethan?”_ Mark chimes in from his previously silent line, voice fast and very French.

Ethan’s not okay though because Clyde Reed, the third in charge— the one who’s usually the gang’s lookout on jobs and is never without firepower, is headed directly towards where Ethan’s sitting. He stutters out as much over the line in hushed and broken French, predictably earning a curse from the four voices in his ear.

Rather than shoot Ethan right there or pull a chair up to his table though, Reed walks through the open cafe doors a few feet to Ethan’s right, barely sparing him a glance as he passes. Right, he’s sitting at a cafe, a place people tend to go for food and drinks.

“Ethan! Where are you?” That’s Mark’s voice, in English. Shit, he’d probably been saying his name for a minute, but Ethan had been too in his head to hear. No wonder analysts didn’t typically go out in the field.

“Uhh... “ He checks his GPS location as quickly as he can. “54 Rue Lacépède,” he fires off with a passing accent. 

He can vaguely hear them discussing who’s closest before Kathyrn jumps in to tell Mark that he is. Kathryn tells him where to go while Ethan tries to discreetly watch Reed over his shoulder every few moments to see what he’s doing.

“Alright. I’m a few minutes away. Keep your eyes on him if you can, Ethan.” Mark sounds like he’s jogging.

 _“Wait— what are you going to do when you get here?”_ He’s distantly proud of himself that he’s able to find the words in a completely secondary language with how fast his mind is reeling right now. Mark doesn’t need to save him though, and they can’t exactly arrest the guy for buying a coffee.

“I’m gonna do my job. Follow him.”

The idea of Mark following the guy who allegedly specializes in tails in the gang sets Ethan’s teeth on edge. And yeah, he knows that the whole point of this outing is to find one of the gang members and have Mark follow them, but a part of Ethan wishes it’d been a smaller fish to start.

Mark slides into the cafe chair next to him quicker than Ethan had been anticipating, pulling the spare from the empty table next to him. Ethan nearly startles at the sound of Mark’s voice greeting him in French, barely out of breath. If Ethan had thought his brain had nearly short-circuited seeing Reed heading straight towards him, he teeters dangerously close to the edge when Mark smiles and leans in to give him a kiss on the cheek, all the while speaking French.

 _“Just go with it. Where’s Reed?”_ Mark asks, pulling away and speaking low so the few people around them won’t hear. Mark speaking French so close and lower than his normal register is going to distract Ethan from the mission soon enough.

_“Still inside as far as I know. He’s probably about to come out though. It’s been a minute.”_

Mark nods and looks to the doors as if trying to see the number of people inside. _“Your French has gotten better,”_ he muses in passing before turning to look at Ethan’s computer to see the picture the software had captured.

Reed has sunglasses on today, but everything else looks exactly the same as the photo they’d previously had. It’s not much though since he looked like a pretty generic guy already. The computer seems to be sure though.

 _“Alright,”_ Mark sighs. _“I’m going to go see if I can see him inside without his glasses on. We need to be sure before I tail this guy around the city.”_ He’s got a point there and Ethan watches as Mark disappears through the doors.

He’s only in there for a minute before he’s out, a grim look set on his face. _“Yeah, that’s him. He’s about to come out, so here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re going to stay here in case anyone else decides to stop by. I’m going to follow Reed. Under no circumstance are you to follow anyone you see, got it?”_

Ethan’s not sure if he’s misunderstanding Mark or if Mark’s really out here trying to give him orders. Ethan is not Mark’s subordinate so he very much does not appreciate being talked down to right now. _“You are quite literally not my boss. What if you’re still on Reed and the others are too far away next time?_ ” Ethan crosses his arms over his chest and sits back in his chair like a petulant child. He watches as Mark’s eyes flit toward the doors again.

_“You’re not a trained field agent, so you’re gonna sit your pretty little butt in this chair until the detail’s over. I will not have you hurt over something I can prevent, you hear me?”_

Yeah, he’s gotta be losing something in translation because nothing so far would indicate Ethan’s expectancy of that last part. He’s distantly aware that there are three other people who can hear what they’re saying, but Mark’s admittance that he cares for Ethan, in French granted, takes him by surprise. That night on the deck at the Canada house had been the first time Ethan had nonverbal confirmation but again, this is different.

 _“Okay,”_ Ethan practically whispers at almost the exact moment that Reed decides to make an exit from the cafe.

Ethan’s eyes may be trained on Mark, but he feels Reed glance in their direction before turning the opposite way and walking off, two coffees clutched in either hand.

 _“You have to go.”_ Ethan finally pulls his eyes away from Mark’s pleading ones and glances down at the laptop. As soon as he walks away, Kathyrn will be tracking his movements to map out routes and get a feel for the terrain.

Mark doesn’t leave yet though. _“Please, Ethan.”_ He acts as if he wants Ethan to swear on his parents’ graves. Every second he sits here, they lose Reed.

_“Yes, I told you. Now please go do your job so we can go home quicker.”_

_"You tired of fieldwork already?”_ Mark retorts, standing up from his chair and placing it back at the other table. _“See you at home,”_ he says before leaning in to place a kiss on Ethan’s cheek for the second time in ten minutes. He’s no less ill-prepared this time than he was the first.

His heart is beating far too hard in his chest to even attempt a farewell. On his computer, a private message from Kathryn pops up and says: “You know we could hear all that, right?” Ethan groans, shoving his fingers up under his glasses to rub his eyes before downing the rest of his coffee quickly.

Mark trails Reed for three hours before the latter finally takes him to their hideout. Contrary to what they’d thought, the gang isn’t hiding away in some apartment in the middle of a renovation. According to Mark, it’s a clean and big building right on the street up near the Pantheon. At least Masterson’s source got the area right.

The extra coffee Reed had left the cafe with was dropped off to someone in a pharmacy around ten minutes in, but Mark hadn’t been able to get a good look at who had accepted it.

Knowing where they’re stationed now though allows Amy and Tyler to conduct a stakeout near the apartment to catalogue the comings and goings of everyone. Amy needs to tap their phone lines— bypassing the governmental ones already in place— and bug the house.

As predicted, those are an unbelievably boring two weeks. In between Amy and Tyler giving updates, Ethan plots out a path through the Louvre. Based on what he’s able to find, the only entrance whose security measures he can likely hack to sufficiently avoid detection are those in the Port de Richelieu, the annual members, and group entry gate. It’s not as heavily secured as the pyramid or that of the Carrousel gates, which are both equipped to deal with the normal influx of tourists.

The unfortunate thing though? Richelieu is on the complete opposite side from the Renaissance paintings that the gang is likely to hit. Ethan groans at the thought of having to navigate Mark and Tyler double the distance. He’ll likely need to path it in-person to catalogue which doorways have those special motion sensors for maximum safety.

Amy wiretaps the phones and places the bugs throughout the gang’s apartment on a Wednesday while Tyler sits out front with a car that he’s pretending unexpectedly broke down, serving as a lookout. It goes off without a hitch, and suddenly they’re able to get an inside look at what they’re dealing with.

It’s obvious after the first few minutes of listening that they’re talking in a loose form of code. It’s not every word, and with five brains, each specializing in something different, it isn’t impossible to figure out what’s important and what’s just filler.

Ethan’s the one who deduces that the phrase “the sponsored” likely means the Renaissance Greats thanks to the Medici family’s patronage of the arts back in the mid to late 1400s.

And through it all, Ethan tries desperately to ignore Mark and his glances— his questions and purposeful inclusion into the conversation if Ethan’s been quiet for too long. Sometimes it causes Ethan to think that maybe Mark has more complicated feelings towards him, and yet, on one specific instance when he sends Amy and Mark to the Louvre to do a run-through of the route while Tyler’s off running recon on the gang, Mark freely volunteers the information that Amy’s his girlfriend.

Sitting at home at what feels like his wall of computers, Ethan watches as Mark and Amy complete the path Ethan had drafted, spanning from the Richelieu entrance, up the center stairs that frame the wonder that is the Nike of Samothrace, and around through the long hallways that comprise the Italian works from 1250-1800. He watches them hold hands, using those clasped hands to point at more notable works in an overly touristy way. To top it all off, they take a few selfies together all while Ethan watches like a fly on the wall— he tries and fails not to seethe inside.

Ethan’s almost mad that the pathway works and appears to work well. In between Mark and Amy acting like a lovesick couple of tourists, they do at least make sure that the rooms they walk through are free of the motion sensors lining the doorways. 

When Tyler, Kathryn, and Ethan take the afternoon off to meet up with Mark and Amy to eat lunch after the latter two successfully finish their romp through the gallery, Ethan can’t help but feel withdrawn from the conversation, snipping ever so lightly at Mark when he tries to get Ethan to speak or contribute to the atmosphere. It’s unfair, he knows, but Mark’s the one who keeps toying with Ethan’s feelings before unnecessarily spending an entire afternoon hanging off someone else.

It’s Mark’s job though, Ethan knows that, which is why he knows he’s being irrational about the whole thing. Mark seems to get the hint soon enough and withdraws from Ethan— stops trying to include him and stops directing his words at him. Somehow that feels worse even though it’s what Ethan wanted.

Mark doesn’t ask him about it, and in a few days, when Mark leans a bit too close to him for something, maybe it’s to look over his shoulder at a computer screen, Ethan’s melting right back into Mark’s aura. He’s not strong enough for this.

News of the heist date comes through on a Thursday a few weeks later. By this point, any one of Ethan’s team can run the path through the Louvre backward with their eyes closed. The only bad thing is that so can the forgers.

As much as Ethan had been having Mark, Tyler, and even Amy repeatedly visit the museum, any one of the three agents have tailed members of the gang doing the same. They’re going to be just as prepared, which means the whole thing will be quick.

Based on the audio from the gang’s apartment, they’re taking Reed, Daniels, Morris, and a smattering of other members with various specialties inside while a few others will be waiting outside and serving as lookouts, but no less dangerous. Amy will have to be careful not to run into them.

With all three top members of the gang in attendance, if they pull this off, the ring will effectively be shut down. Ethan tries not to get his hopes up, but he’s well aware of how good Mark and Tyler are at what they do.

Time now seems to accelerate toward them stupidly fast, picking up an unnatural speed if Ethan didn’t know better. As easily as the three agents are able to weave their way through the museum by now, Ethan’s also able to slip into the surveillance system with his eyes closed, gaining access to every camera on the premises if he so chooses.

Ethan notices that Mark begins spending more time out alone, going for runs and circling the blocks and perimeter of the museum to make himself more comfortable in the event that something doesn’t go to plan at any point. He wants to tell Mark not to overwork or stress himself out, but he also wants Mark at the top of his game, and if this is what he needs to do to get himself there, then so be it.

It’s all Ethan can do to make sure everyone’s prepared and as ready as possible so that nothing goes wrong— so that no one gets hurt. The quicker they finish this, the quicker they get to go home. That’s the abstract goal anyway, one that Ethan thinks he wants, but the more he thinks about it, the more he doesn’t know if he’s ready to face his daily routine again just yet— convinced that an assignment so far from home is probably what’s gotten him this far.

Ready or not though, the day of the attempted heist falls upon them. The mood throughout the apartment is quietly optimistic if somber in a sense. For most of the day, everyone tends to themselves, coming together only here and there and for dinner. Even that feels stilted in a way though. Ethan feels jittery, though he can’t decipher if it’s out of excitement or fear. 

Sometime after dinner, Ethan finds himself wandering onto the balcony off his room that overlooks the street below. Plans and contingencies swirl around his head, everything that needs to go right but could still go so wrong at the snap of a finger. Everything later tonight hinges on the idea that they work together as well as Ethan thinks they can. What Mark’s learned specifically about Ethan since New York is miles greater than what he’d known when he’d broken ranks then.

Still, though, there’s no telling what they could run into. As much as they plan, there will always be an element of uncertainty.

The cool early June night air helps to calm Ethan’s mind a bit, helps him channel the part of him that knows he’s good at what he does— they all are, and that’s why they’re here. They’re good at thinking on the fly and correcting for things that go wrong.

As the fresh air calms him, Ethan lets himself look out at the rooftops and streets of the surrounding city, relatively busy still at 7:30 on a Wednesday night. Even though they’re a bit secluded on their street from the traditional Paris nightlife, Ethan still finds things to watch as people walk past. 

Two women walk down the sidewalk across the street, arm in arm, laughing at something one of them has just said. It causes Ethan’s heart to constrict in his chest, the knowledge of what his heart wants so close yet so unattainably far away.

He doesn’t know how long he’s out there before the door to the balcony opens, one of his teammates likely coming to check on him. Unlike when Mark had caught him last time, Ethan turns to look and is only a little surprised that it’s Mark again.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Ethan muses, turning his gaze back to the street.

Mark hums in agreement and sits down, his shoulder practically touching Ethan’s. “One more will be a pattern, you know.”

Ethan can’t help but huff out laughter at the almost-joke.

“But seriously, you okay?”

Ethan’s heart aches at the sincereness of Mark’s question. What a twist that he hadn’t been expecting. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just get a little too in my head before missions. Nothing a little fresh air doesn’t solve though.” _Nothing like last time_ goes unsaid. He chances a glance over at Mark to see if he can catch a glimpse at the other’s thought process.

Mark’s watching the cars pass below, a serene look on his face. Ethan’s only able to play observer for a moment before Mark’s turning his head back to look at him. The only word Ethan can find to explain the look on Mark’s face is ‘soft’. He looks at Ethan as if all he wants to do is to make sure he’s okay— to make whatever negative thoughts running around in his head, go away.

Ethan yearns.

“Good. I don’t want you shutting down again.” It’s said with such simplicity— as if it were obvious he felt that way, which— okay.

Mark turns his head back towards the street before blindly shifting closer so that their shoulders really are touching this time. There’s no way this isn’t intentional, Ethan thinks before his brain can remind him that this is what friends do for each other. They’re there for support and comfort, both emotional and physical. And damn, Ethan could use some physical support, which is what he tells himself before leaning his head down against Mark’s shoulder, the top of his head brushing Mark’s neck.

The world around him goes sideways and from this close, he can feel the breath that Mark takes, large and deep enough that it feels like a sigh. Peace descends upon them both for a short time, none of the other team members coming to bother them. It’s nice. Ethan thinks he could fall asleep like this— almost does too until he feels Mark’s head shifting and then what are distinctly Mark’s lips pressing a kiss into his hair before leaning his own head up against Ethan’s.

It’s a miracle that Mark can’t see his face right now because Ethan’s positive the fierce blush running up his neck and covering his cheeks would be a dead giveaway as to the state of his mind.

Part of him doesn’t know what to think— is trying to tell himself that what he wants isn’t what Mark meant by it, but it’s incredibly difficult under all the warmth and solid mass that is Mark sitting next to him.

As all traces of the sun disappear and the day descends solidly into night, Mark, Amy, and Tyler fit themselves into their tactical gear, not unlike what Ethan’s been seeing them wear since New York. Mark and Tyler have on their long-sleeve black shirts fitted with a bulletproof vest snugly over the top. Over the vests, they both pull different colored windbreakers on for both before and after the mission.

Ethan watches across the room from his perch on the arm of the couch as Amy packs items assembled on the kitchen table into her backpack. Mark checks to make sure his gun is loaded with the safety on before tucking it in the back of his waistband and solidly under his jacket where it’s invisible to the untrained eye. 

The three of them had yet to suit up like _this_ since being in Paris, having stuck to surveillance and recon, both of which required more friendly civilian attire. The image stirs the previously calmed nerves in Ethan’s gut— a small part of him can’t help but expect the worst after all his years watching agents do this.

Mark meets his eyes from across the room and cracks a smile before walking over. His heavy combat boots thud against the old parquet floors, rattling the glass panes in the window frames, as well as pieces of decorative glass on the various shelves and side tables.

“Help me thread my earpiece?” Mark asks, holding it out to Ethan. Ethan gulps before setting his feet back on the floor and stretching out his limbs.

“Why is this the _last_ thing you’re putting on?” He tries to sound put-out, and maybe he feels it a bit, but Mark knows Ethan will do anything for him.

Mark shrugs and tucks the small earpiece snugly into his ear, threading the wire over the back of his ear. From there, Ethan takes the tape Mark offers up and tapes the wires down at the nape of his neck under his collar. “At least take your jacket and vest off?” 

Before Ethan has the chance to back out of his space, Mark’s tearing the pieces of clothing off as if it were no big deal— which, Ethan supposes it really _isn’t_ if he could get his mind out of the gutter.

With just Mark’s shirt in the way, it’s a lot easier to thread the wires appropriately. He takes the wires and slips them down through the back of Mark’s collar, pointedly refusing to acknowledge the heat of how close they are together, and waits for them to drop out the bottom. Mark’s radio, small and compact, is fastened into the back of his vest, which Ethan plugs the wire into and turns on once Mark shrugs his outer layers back onto his body. A part of Ethan mourns the outpouring of heat that he loses as a result.

As if to make it worse, Mark turns his head to look at Ethan when he’s done, an angle which puts them even closer together if possible, and smiles, hesitating for several seconds. “Everything working back there?” Mark asks, low enough that the rest of the room probably doesn’t hear.

Ethan somehow manages to nod and steps away before clearing his throat and shoving his glasses up into his hair so he can wipe at his face, clearing his mind.

Thankfully, everyone else had the foresight to put their clothes on _over_ their earpiece wires, so all Ethan has to do is plug them in and turn them on, making sure everything is taped down and has a solid connection.

And then Mark, Amy, and Tyler are heading out the front door. Ethan gives all three of them hugs, telling them to be safe and to get it done and get out. He may or may not hold onto Mark for a few seconds longer than the rest, but then again, what he feels for Mark versus the rest of them, even if he shouldn’t, is more— different. No one says anything about it though, a small fact that Ethan’s grateful for. If they did this right, the French police would be a few minutes away once the gang members were apprehended.

At this hour, it takes them a bit longer than normal to get to the Louvre by way of the metro due to the night routes. They don’t appear to mind outwardly though, chatting amicably to each other while Tyler scrolls through his phone. Predictably, the metro and surrounding area are largely deserted when they disembark from the train and its station. 

When Ethan taps into the museum’s security feeds, feeding the guards in the security office fake, looping feeds, he sees Mark, Amy, and Tyler just at the edge of its field of vision. Taking a deep and calming breath, he looks over at Kathryn and nods. “Here we go.”

Turning on his own mic, he tells Mark and Tyler they’re good to go, that he owns all the cameras and the sensor switchboard. Amy rounds the building to get closer to a side entrance and closer to where they’ll inevitably end up so that she can assist in restraining the gang members.

Mark and Tyler use the staff door a few feet over from the main Richelieu entrance, the lock being the simple electronic one that Ethan had been anticipating. It takes the three of them no more than two minutes before they’re inside and clicking on their flashlights, heading towards their desired destination.

It’s a good thing that Mark and Tyler know largely where they’re going because Ethan’s doing double duty with camera feeds and reminding them where the sensors are, making them keep him updated on their whereabouts.

A part of Ethan wishes that he was with Mark and Tyler in-person. The beauty and sheer size of the museum during the day was already incredible. Ethan can only imagine what it looks like at night, empty of tourists and quiet enough to actually hear himself think. Even over the camera feed, the empty halls and towering ceilings are practically awe-inspiring. If he weren’t worried about doing this perfectly, he’d let himself get distracted while Mark and Tyler navigated their way through.

He is worried though, still flipping through camera feeds and monitoring the sensor switchboard he’d managed to tap into even as they’re halfway to their destination. They’ve been inside the building for nearly forty-five minutes. He has to remind himself several times that the two agents know their way around the layout, having mapped it out countless times more than was likely necessary both on paper and in-person. Not for the first time that night, Ethan finds that it was a really good idea to do that, one that wasn’t purely neurotic once he realizes how quickly he has to flip through feeds to make sure they’re clear. 

They’re a little more than halfway to the Renaissance wing of the ground floor, coming to the grand staircase that houses the ethereal Nike of Samothrace sculpture at the top. Ethan viscerally remembers that hall, remembers what it’s like with the towering marble columns that meet at a set of circular skylights usually lighting the area in a brilliant natural glow. Now, moonlight shines in, allowing Mark and Tyler to turn their flashlights off for a moment.

From Ethan’s vantage in the security system, he can only see shots from the corners of the room, discreetly placed so as not to detract from the simplistic beauty of the architecture. Off to one side, he can see smudges that indicate Tyler and Mark waiting for Ethan’s go-ahead to ascend the staircase to make their way through to the first-floor wing they need.

Sure enough, the cameras remain clear, and the agents slowly ascend the stairs, trying desperately to make sure their footsteps don’t echo too loudly on the marble floors. They get to the top of the stairs without incident, and for a moment, Ethan thinks they may make it to their agreed-upon hiding place to wait out the forgers. 

And then Ethan sees a light on the switchboard.

He can’t tell where it’s coming from, only that a sensor has been flipped somewhere. Scanning to a camera near the security offices, Ethan can see officers leaving the room at a quick pace, hands reaching down to their belts where their guns reside. Distantly, Ethan thinks guns may be overkill, but then he remembers what building they’re in and what’s contained within.

It’s all Ethan can do to take a breath and tell Mark and Tyler what’s happened. He can see them both freeze on the monitors as if they’re trying to listen for footsteps. Ethan’s about to flip through the cameras to try and find them, but he should have figured that they’d just make for the central staircase if the sensor was tripped anywhere upstairs.

“Uh Ethan, there are flashlights bouncing off walls at the bottom of the stairs. We need to know where we’re going _now_ ,” Mark urges, his voice hard with composure. 

“Right,” Ethan huffs and taps a few keys, dragging several camera feeds onto his screen. This is what he’d been planning for out on the balcony— he can get them out of there. There are several staircases that lead down to the ground floor from where they are, but they’ll have to leave through a main exit, all of which are likely on their way to being guarded.

“Alright, you guys need to run up the stairs and to your left and then left again when you get to the end of that short hallway. I’m not sure which of these rooms have sensors but it doesn’t matter at this point.” Thankfully, no guards have assembled in the back left stairwell, allowing Mark and Tyler to run down the stairs two and three at a time.

By this point, the forgers are likely in the building themselves somewhere, so Ethan can only guess who tripped the room sensor. When Mark and Tyler get downstairs and begin to head to the nearest exit that Ethan directs them to, there are guards either waiting for them or actively headed in their direction. He has the camera feeds of the exit within sight when Ethan sees the guards sprint around the corner in the feed above the exit on his monitor, approaching the top of the small set of stairs directly in front of Mark and Tyler. Time feels like it moves in slow motion.

Thankfully, the area of the museum they’re in isn’t one long gallery like a good portion of the rest. They’ve come upon a series of rooms all connected, almost like a maze. Ethan instructs them to go left, out of sight of the few guards approaching the stairs and into the rooms so they can regroup and wait for an opening. Ethan’s barely keeping his voice and breathing under control as Tyler and Mark’s shoes try their best to hold onto the slick marble. He waits to see them turn through the camera feed in front of him, except they don’t.

Mark— out in front of Tyler— ignores Ethan’s orders to run to his left, instead, continuing straight and bounding up the stairs, directly into the path where the guards are now becoming visible to them. The second that Tyler follows Mark and doesn’t turn left, Ethan’s stomach bottoms out, the feeling not unlike that of a roller coaster coming over that first hill. This time, the feeling isn't welcome as it had been on that deck in Canada. The only difference between this and a roller coaster is that this could end in death.

Ethan’s not entirely sure of the words that come out of his mouth, but he knows he’s yelling loud enough that the neighbors can probably hear him.

He can hear Mark trying to talk him down until they reach the top of the stairs and see three men with their guns drawn. It was probably a subsequent room sensor Mark and Tyler had tripped in trying to get away that tipped them off on actual people being in the building. Barely a sentence makes it out of Mark’s mouth before there’s a gunshot loud over both sets of mics.

The noise shocks everyone into silence for a second, Ethan frantically searching the feed in front of him to try and see who’s shot who. His heart is hammering inside his chest, and he’s having mega deja vu that he’s honestly not as prepared for as he’d initially thought he was.

On the camera though, Mark’s still standing, his gun firing off shots of his own now as he and Tyler first look for cover and then turn to flee back down the way they’d come from.

They’ve turned down the way Ethan originally told them to go before Tyler stumbles, Mark catching him by his right shoulder, which earns him a pained grunt. Ethan realizes a few seconds before Mark what’s happened— realizes that Tyler’s the one that’s been shot.

Ethan doesn’t have time though to stop and ask Tyler how he is in addition to Mark’s questions. Tyler’s still standing and that’s all that matters at the moment. Right now, as the sounds of gunshots echo off the stone walls, likely hitting priceless artworks as Mark and Tyler dodge them in the maze of rooms, Ethan’s main objective is to get them out and back home. 

Since they’ve lured the guards to follow them through the maze, they’re able to jump a few of the stairs connecting the rooms at the back end and come out on the other side of the staircase Mark had tried running up a few minutes ago. According to the museum plans, there’s a service exit in the stairwell at the end of the hallway. 

No doubt that the guards will follow them down the hallway, calling for backup as they realize where Mark and Tyler are heading. They’re so close that if Ethan can get them out and around the building to blend into an alleyway or disappear down into the metro the way he’s seen Mark and Tyler do before, then they’ll be okay. Ethan’s willing to bet that the guards’ jurisdiction ends at the limits of the grounds.

Somehow, they get out.

If Ethan’s seeing correctly, Mark manages to shoot one of the guards as they’re opening the service door, causing him to fall almost directly in the path of the others. Thankfully, this gives Mark and Tyler time to gain ground outside and slip through the arches that connect the museum’s courtyard to the road outside. Thankfully, Kathryn’s been communicating to Amy, who’s there on the other side of the archway with a bag of civilian clothes and documents to get them home. Now, they can disappear into the landscape.

Once Amy gets to them and they’re down and unassuming in the metro, more than likely making their way back to the townhouse safely, Ethan transfers full control to Kathryn and throws his headset down onto the desk before storming out of the room.

Amy, Mark, and Tyler are safe but the mission’s a bust. They were intercepted, compromised before they could set the appropriate trap for the right people.

Ethan wants to scream. His skin feels itchy like he needs to run. Run far away, but he can’t. He needs to pull himself together, and while he can yell at Mark later, he needs to be strong and professional now.

But yet, as much as he’s telling himself to pull it together, Ethan can feel his breath involuntarily picking up, taking in deep gasps too quickly to be beneficial. The kitchen isn’t big enough to make his pacing productive. His paces pick up just a touch too quickly while he tries to talk himself down from a panic attack.

Mark and Tyler are okay, there’s nothing to freak out about. They’re alive, and they’re coming home. They’ll have to get in touch with Masterson about the next step, but it’s not Ethan's fault that things didn’t go according to plan.

It takes Ethan about ten minutes to calm himself down, calm his breathing until he’s taking slow and measured breaths that don’t make him want to pass out. When he walks back upstairs, Kathryn’s still sitting at her desktop, though she looks a lot calmer now than she had fifteen minutes ago.

She’s talking quietly to someone, but Ethan’s not in the right mindset to put his headset back on. Sure, it might help him to hear their voices, but Ethan’s not confident in his ability to stay calm right now if he hears Mark’s voice try and pretend everything’s alright. Instead, he stands behind his chair, hands propped up on the back, and lets his head hang forward close to his chest, breathing in deep, measured breaths.

Even through the closed doors, two floors, and soundproofing tile, Ethan hears the lock on the front door unlatch and the heavy glass and iron door breach its jamb. Instantly, he’s up and out of the office chair, Kathryn a few seconds behind him as she likely realizes what Ethan’s about to do.

He very nearly falls down the stairs he’s taking them so fast— misses one near the middle but rights himself on the banister through sheer anger. When Ethan gets to the foot of the stairs, Mark’s still standing at the door, barely a foot into the apartment while Amy walks in behind him and takes Tyler from where Mark’s got an arm around his waist.

Mark looks to be in one piece, though he seems to have a scratch at his temple, a bit of blood caked around the edges of it. Ethan wonders when that happened, but it doesn't look like it's hurting him, which means he at least followed one direction when Ethan was yelling at him asking him if he’d been hurt. He also looks tired and frazzled, worry furrowing his brows as he watches Tyler hiss from where Amy’s sat him down on a barstool to check his wound.

Despite it all, Ethan can’t help but unleash his anger, all the fear suddenly catching up to him as he sees Mark safe and sound. “When I say ‘go left’, you go left!!” It’s loud and the neighbors could probably hear it if they tried, but Ethan just _really_ doesn’t care. He marches up to Mark, the other backing up a step as Ethan gets right up in his face, though he chooses not to lower his volume.

Mark must decide that he’s going to give as good as he gets because he comes back with equal volume even as Ethan’s only inches away. “I saw the way through, and I took it. It’s not like I anticipated the guards waiting at the top and Tyler getting shot!”

That somehow makes it worse though. The fact that Mark was so confident in his actions despite Ethan telling him what to do. It makes it worse, and Ethan knows he’ll regret his words in the morning, but for now, he bears his heart on his sleeve. “But _I_ did! I literally did because I have the blueprints and eyes on the CCTV feeds! Instead, you try to play the hero and think you know better than the guy in your ear! I’m so fucking _sick_ of the people I love dying because of stupid mistakes while I can’t help them because I’m two miles away holed up in some shitty safehouse office, unable to do anything that would matter!”

Mark stops, face going slack. “...Love?”

And oh, that wasn’t one of Ethan’s secrets he’d meant to bear. He had thought _‘fuck it’_ , but not that way.

Ethan feels his eyes widen, his blood drain from his face. The room feels like it’s suddenly a million degrees— like everyone’s eyes are staring daggers at him. The wool of his sweater feels itchier than normal against his arms. He vaguely registers Mark moving the two of them away from the door, further into the foyer, but Mark’s hands on his shoulders, albeit through the thick material of his sweater, are too much. 

Before Ethan fully registers what he’s doing, he’s backing away from Mark and reaching for the door handle, suddenly needing to be as far away as possible from all of this. He feels like he’s suffocating, and no one’s stopping him as he wrenches the heavy door open, sprinting down the steps with tears in his eyes and turning the corner before they can catch up to him.

Memories of Brian are suddenly flooding back, all too aware of how similar this night could have been— almost was. 

Ethan only makes it as far as the small park around the corner from their townhouse. It’s largely empty at this hour but the streetlights lend a peaceful air to the surroundings. The light bounces off the swaying leaves of the surrounding trees— sparkles in the remaining puddles from where it had rained early in the day. He practically collapses onto one of the empty park benches and tucks his legs up to his chin, heaving breaths and trying desperately to keep the tears on the inside of his lash line.

He thinks he’s doing a marginally okay job too before he hears the familiar deep timbre of Mark’s voice off to his side— the side he should have been watching considering it’s the way he came from. Talking to people isn’t a task that’s too high on Ethan’s list right now, and talking to people who reside under the same roof as himself is even lower. There’s nothing he particularly wants to hear out of Mark’s mouth right now because whatever it is won’t be sincere. He’ll only be saying things to Ethan in reaction to how the last fifteen minutes have gone anyway.

Mark stops him from fleeing again with a gentle few fingers reaching out to touch his quickly withdrawing wrist. Ethan may be angry right now, but he hates how weak he is when it comes to Mark being soft with him.

So, Ethan stays put, but he pointedly doesn’t watch as Mark comes to sit down on the bench with about a foot of distance separating the two of them. He keeps his head pillowed on his elbows folded atop his knees— now indeed facing the way Mark had come from. 

For what it’s worth, Mark remains silent for what’s probably the longest period of time Ethan’s seen him outside a mission. He’s unsure if Mark’s watching him or if he’s watching their surroundings, but Ethan’s obstinate and refuses to look at Mark until he inevitably breaks the silence.

Predictably, the break comes sooner rather than later.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to think for myself when you were the one who had the plan.” It’s quiet and measured, even bordering on sincere, Ethan thinks. Ethan adjusts his head so that he’s staring across the expanse of the park in front of him, but his legs remain tucked against him. A few cars pass on the other side of the trees, their headlights bright and piercing even surrounded by the streetlights and few lit residences beyond.

He lets one of his hands brush across the grain of the wood beneath him, his fingers catching on a sliver of wood that’s come up as a result of age and the elements. The temptation to feel his skin give against something wins out, so he presses the tips of his fingers into and against the sliver, desperate to feel something other than fear and heartbreak. He should answer Mark, tell him that it’s okay, that they all make mistakes, but he doesn’t wholly trust his voice right now not to break. So, he says nothing.

He says nothing until there’s a hand, just a bit bigger than his, prying his fingers from the sharp bits of wood. Ethan hadn’t realized he’d been using the hand closest to Mark. For a moment, Mark doesn’t say anything, just holds the tips of Ethan’s fingers in his.

Finally, Mark speaks up again. It’s still quiet, though. In the surrounding emptiness with only the distant sounds of police sirens bouncing off nearby buildings, it feels like Mark’s shouting. “Did you ever tell him?” He doesn’t elaborate, though Ethan doesn’t need him to. They both know who the ‘he’ is, both know what Ethan wanted to say.

“No,” Ethan chokes out, voice thick with mucus that needs to be cleared from this throat, but he feels like even that’s too big of a task. “It wasn’t like that, and besides, I wanted to keep things professional.”

Mark doesn’t immediately respond, but Ethan still resists turning to see his reaction, afraid of what he’ll find. Would it be one of pity or of sadness? Does Mark feel sympathy for him for his situation or thankfulness that he wasn’t in Ethan’s shoes? What he doesn’t expect is to feel the fingers gripping the edges of his to actually intertwine with Ethan’s own and squeezing, a pair of lips pressing into the top of Ethan’s right shoulder. Mark’s closer than he was a moment ago.

“Well whatever kind it was, you should have been able to tell him. You shouldn’t have to hide it.” The conviction behind those words constricts Ethan’s throat further, and he finally loses muscle tone, collapsing into Mark where the latter turns to catch him, arms coming up to encircle around his back.

Ethan finally lets the dam on his emotions break, hot and heavy tears sliding thick down his face. The heaviness of the day and the mission come crashing down on him. Tyler’s laying upstairs with a bullet hole in his shoulder because Mark couldn’t control himself. Ethan should feel furious over it all, but instead, he seeks solace in the weight of the other man, cries into his long-sleeved undershirt that had been under his tactical gear. As much as he tries to push away the thoughts, he thinks again about how close he came to losing Tyler, how close he came to losing Mark.

“I’m sorry,” Mark murmurs into the side of Ethan’s head, low and smooth. “I’m so sorry. For everything, but for tonight especially. It was stupid.” The soothing circles Mark rubs into Ethan’s back are grounding in the moment.

Mark shuffles closer to Ethan on the bench, taking more of his weight into his chest as Ethan continues to finally let his body sag. He’s tired of being strong for five minutes. His heart feels like it’s juggling a million different emotions for all the people in his life, and those no longer. Brian hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind for a few weeks now but suddenly he’s back with a vengeance, but Mark’s also here.

Mark and these complicated feelings Ethan’s been feeling for him since Brian’s birthday. Well, the feelings he’s been able to put a name to since that night. He suspects he’s felt something more for Mark since earlier— maybe as early as his apology after Governor’s Island as they followed each other to the subway station. The severity of it makes Ethan feel nauseous, overcome with feelings he shouldn’t be entertaining. But here is, letting Mark hold him while he wallows in them.

For a moment, Ethan thinks that maybe he’ll let the feelings pass, walk with Mark back to the townhouse, and then never speak of this again. They’ll never speak of the night as a whole, not just this half of it. He thinks he might get away with that until Mark pulls Ethan’s face away from his shoulder, both getting a solid look at each other for the first time since Mark had sat down. The look in Mark’s eyes is unlike anything Ethan’s seen before, different even from when he found out about Brian’s birthday.

Ethan pretty much loses his voluntary motor control at the point when Mark reaches up and brushes tears away from his eyes, his thumb coming to rest at the crest of Ethan’s cheekbone. It’s too much, and it causes Ethan to press forward, his hands still fisted in Mark’s shirt, and connect their lips with little finesse and plenty of desperation.

The mortification seeps in within seconds, and Ethan pulls away, nearly falling off the edge of the bench in his haste to get away. In what’s quickly becoming Ethan’s silver bullet, Mark reaches out and grabs at his arm, effectively stabilizing and stopping him in his tracks.

“Hey, hey, wait,” Mark murmurs before pulling Ethan back and tipping his chin back up into Mark’s space. Ethan closes his eyes at the feeling of Mark not letting Ethan talk himself out of it, which is probably for the best. He feels Mark inhale and then lets his mind be silenced for a few moments longer while Mark steals his breath again and again. It’s surprisingly calm for all the tumultuous feelings swirling around Ethan’s head, but the way Mark’s fingers cradle his jaw doesn’t demand heady passion and desire.

This time when he separates from Mark, he isn’t let go very far, still very in Mark’s space out in public on some random park bench. “Before anything else happens, we need to get some sleep, alright? We’re both really tired and need to sort through some things in the morning before we come back to this.” The rumble of Mark’s voice so close to him sends a shiver up Ethan’s spine.

Ethan knows Mark’s right. It’s not a rejection though, far from it in fact. The last thing they need though is for Ethan to spout more things out of his mouth in a fit of emotion that he may regret come daylight. So, he nods, sniffs harshly through his nose, and lets his feet settle back on the ground where they belong. They tingle from a lack of blood flow, but Ethan’s just a bit too preoccupied watching Mark stand, wincing at where he must have pulled a muscle earlier. 

The walk back to the apartment is largely silent, though Ethan lets his pinkie catch on Mark’s as their hands sway. If a small smile pulls at the corner of Ethan’s mouth at something so simple, then so be it. It’s been a rough night.

Mark stops at the stairs to the apartment, letting his pinkie fall from Ethan’s. “I have to make a call. I’ll be in shortly.”

The idea of walking back inside and seeing everyone is incredibly unappealing, but Ethan nods and trudges up the stairs and pulls open the door. It feels heavier in his exhaustion, but he gets inside with relatively little struggle.

As it turns out, the rest of the team has dispersed to different areas of the apartment. Kathryn’s sitting at the dining table with headphones on as she types away at her laptop, Tyler on his way out of the kitchen with a bottle of water and his right arm in a sling with a thick white bandage wrapped around his shoulder and across his chest.

Ethan doesn’t continue into the main sitting area, and instead, walks straight through the foyer and up the stairs to his bedroom. He continues past the open office door, his chair still rolled away from the desk and his papers all over the desktop, though his monitor’s gone dark. Instead, he shuffles into his bedroom and closes the door quietly behind himself, hearing the click before pulling his glasses off and dropping them onto the nightstand furthest from the door.

The adrenaline’s abandoned him in full force, and Ethan can feel himself crashing. His eyes feel dry from crying against Mark’s chest and puffy from rubbing at them roughly as a result. Despite their state, Ethan runs both hands over his eyes and down his face, sighing before pulling back the duvet and curling up in the clothes he’s worn all day. He simply doesn’t have the energy to care anymore.

The rest of the apartment is quiet following the closure of his door, though he thinks he hears the front door open shortly following his calmed breathing, hears the deep timbre of Mark’s voice say something to Kathryn before fading out.

For as stressed out as Ethan is, sleep thankfully finds him quickly, slipping into a dreamless but restless sleep.

Ethan’s awakened sometime later by a dip in his mattress, the feeling of his duvet being pulled back, and the chilly outside air seeping in. He’s on the far side of the bed, back to the door, and face towards the window, which would ordinarily be inopportune. Given his profession, he should be more frightened of someone trying to slip into his bed, and maybe he would be if the weight of one of the person’s arms draping over Ethan’s waist wasn’t so distractingly Mark.

He tries to turn around in bed to face Mark, his brain slowly clearing as it catches up to the situation at hand. “What? Mark what are you…”

But Mark hushes him and tightens his grip around Ethan, slotting his legs between Ethan’s own. If Ethan thought Mark’s hand rubbing circles on his back was soothing and grounding, this is next level. All Ethan can do is relax into the heat of the solid chest behind him and try to calm his heart that races at the feeling of Mark’s lips pressed to the back of his neck.

The remaining sleep Ethan manages to get that night is still dreamless but transitions to restful. He doesn’t honestly remember falling asleep again until an urgent knocking on his bedroom door pulls him from the depths of slumber. At some point in the night, Ethan’s turned over, his face now practically buried in Mark’s clothed chest while the latter remains turned on his side as he had when he had climbed into bed.

Some form of acknowledgment must pass his lips because he’s raising his head in the direction of the door as it’s opening to reveal a harried-looking Tyler, clothes, and hair askew as if he’s just woken up. Based on the light filtering in through his windows, it’s still somewhat early, the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon.

“Ethan? We have an emergency, I think Mark’s gone…” He gradually trails off as his eyes adjust to the dim light of Ethan’s room, eyes finally landing on the head of dark hair pillowed next to Ethan and facing away from the door. Ethan doesn’t get the chance to respond before Tyler’s stammering out an apology and closing the door silently behind him. If he concentrates, he thinks he can hear Tyler saying something out in the living room, but he’s too groggy and Mark’s still sleeping, so Ethan allows himself to lie back down and settle back into Mark’s warmth, sleep pulling him under for just a bit longer before facing the aftermath of last night.

Ethan wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later to the feeling of being watched. It’s not a bad feeling though, one born out of a heavy stare and foreboding energy. No, this one feels light, like there’s a certain _goodness_ accompanying the slow circles of a thumb on his exposed hip bone above the comforter.

Without his glasses on, Mark’s slightly blurry when Ethan opens his eyes to see the other man lying in the same position as he had been when Tyler had woken him up earlier. Despite his now wakeful state, Mark doesn’t pull his hand away from Ethan’s waist, his other folded and pillowed under his head. 

“How long have you been up?” Ethan finds himself mumbling through sleep-heavy vocal cords, refusing to look away from how Mark’s eyes watch him.

Mark hums and moves his hand away from Ethan’s waist. The skin he leaves in his wake is immediately cold, and Ethan feels an ache in his chest at the loss. He doesn’t let his face show his true feelings though. “Not too long. Just looking.”

 _Just looking_. The sentence stirs a warm feeling deep in Ethan’s gut all the way up to his face. He hopes he’s not blushing over something so simple.

“Have you seen Tyler yet? He came bursting in here earlier all frantic thinking you’d left. Calmed down and left when he saw you lying here.”

Mark appears to think, pondering over why Tyler would have been so frantic to find him. Before he’d gone back to sleep, Ethan had wondered over the same thing. Was he afraid that Mark would run off after last night? Why? What had they seen that Ethan hadn’t last night?

Ethan watches Mark’s eyes shift down his face from his eyes for a moment, getting stuck on Ethan’s lips if he didn’t know better. Mark purses his own lips though and commits to an impersonation of a shrug as if he were clueless to Tyler’s motives.

“I’ll ask him when we get up. If he needs me before then he can come find me.”

“Mmm, I should probably deal with the report from last night. I didn’t type up my half or sign off on Kathryn’s half.”

Something shifts in Mark’s eyes and Ethan only has a moment to wonder why. “About last night… Ethan, I’m… I’m sorry about everything.”

Ethan notices how Mark doesn’t say anything about the two of them, about Ethan’s frenzied kiss he’d given Mark. The omission sends a spark up his spine, but he tries not to get his hopes up. Mark’s apologizing about his last partner again after all— it would probably be rude to call out Ethan on his hysterical actions in the same breath. “Mark…”

“No, it was a stupid and novice move— you were right to yell at me for it. We made that deal at Governor’s Island that I would never do that again, and then I did. You don’t deserve that.” There’s an earnestness to Mark’s words that don’t match up with the hour of the day, but Ethan’s finding it hard to care. He wants to wrap himself in the speeches Mark gives, in his apologies and outpourings of devotion that make Ethan feel like he’s been elevated to another plane of existence. 

Despite Ethan’s minuscule regret over his actions last night, he finds himself leaning forward again, closing the small gap between the two of them. At the point of contact, Ethan can swear he hears a hitch in Mark’s breathing, a small huff that causes heat to bloom across Ethan’s entire body. Ethan’s hands wander up from where they’re cradled to his chest and pull at the collar of Mark’s shirt, drawing him closer still until Mark’s nearly halfway on top of him.

It’s slow and lazy, unhurried after the frantic first kiss Ethan had given Mark on that park bench, but slightly more than the following ones had been. Ethan’s unsure of how much time passes as he lets his hands wander, feeling parts of Mark he’d only dreamed about until then. For now, the intrusive thoughts threatening to overwhelm him are blessedly quiet until Mark’s rolling off him, hands trailing and lifting from Ethan’s waist before propping himself up a little better on the pillows behind him.

Naturally, Ethan follows, pillowing his head against Mark’s chest and letting his fingers trace mindless designs on Mark’s stomach. They manage to lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes, Ethan trying to let himself fall into it because this is what he wanted, isn’t it? Something feels off, though he can’t figure it out exactly. Mark’s heavy hand scratching gently at Ethan’s shoulders, his heart beating underneath his ear, makes it a little too hard to think.

It might be because of lingering thoughts of last night’s blowup, or it might be because Ethan feels a little guilty about the circumstances surrounding them getting together. Mark’s only here in his bed because Ethan shouted at him that he loved him and then impulsively kissed him on a park bench after getting tears and snot all over him.

Ethan should tread over all this lightly, but he feels suffocated all of a sudden, smothered by all the thoughts running through his head. Silently, without saying anything, Ethan manages to worm his way out of bed, much to Mark’s apparent dismay. Mark doesn’t ask him any questions as he leaves, apart from a discomforted huff. He likely knows at some point that the others will come looking for one or both of them, and Ethan will let Mark think what he wants to get him off the hook easier. 

Mark continues to lay there for about ten minutes while Ethan slips out of the room to venture down the hallway to wash his face and brush his teeth. Leaning against the open doorway with his glasses on when he comes back down the hall, Ethan can actually see the cuts and bruises from last night that are more prominent on Mark’s face and arms where they poke out from the covers than they had been last night. The injuries stir the residual anger that’s begun building again from last night. This couldn’t happen again, almost losing Mark, yet Ethan knows deep in his bones that it’s bound to. This is Mark, after all, the bull-headed agent who barely takes ‘no’ for an answer.

The hastily butterflied wound on his forehead is angry and red, and Ethan can’t help but think that it should have actual stitches— that Mark declined in his rush to comfort Ethan. Despite it all, the feelings and the care, Ethan can feel his walls creeping back up, an effect of his self-preservation and residual anger for the field in general. Personal feelings will do nothing but result in a broken heart.

Mark’s eyes catch his as he stands in the doorway of the bedroom. He looks tired and drained but soft like he’d give Ethan anything he could ask for. It’s too much.

He averts his eyes, Mark’s gaze scaling him. “I’ve got to write the report for last night.” Ethan’s gaze travels the floor, searching for a discarded sweatshirt to pull over his head so he’ll have some semblance of a change of clothes. 

He’s not looking at Mark, but maybe he should because it would mean he would’ve seen the other man reaching out, could have prepared himself. Instead, Ethan tenses at the warmth of Mark’s fingers circling around his wrist.

“Is everything okay?”

The concern in Mark’s voice nearly breaks Ethan’s composure, nearly makes him confess everything and crawl back into bed. He doesn’t though— break— and slides his fingers down into Mark’s, squeezing what he hopes is reassuring before quietly slipping from his grasp and out of the bedroom.

Alone, even for a second in the hallway, is overwhelming. Ethan needs to get outside, into the fresh air and breeze to ease the cacophony of conflicting voices in his head. He needs to be alone, but he’s stuck in a safe house in Paris with a time-sensitive report due to his superior sooner rather than later.

The thought of confronting everyone— the rest of the team— after last night, is almost nauseating. The events of last night were practically a masterclass in how not to conduct a covert mission, yet here they all were.

In his four years of this, Ethan had never exploded on Brian, not even that last time they’d been together. He’s always had a clear head, left all those personal feelings at the door, yet here he was with Mark, leaving the house in a fit because Mark had gone and put himself in front of a gun and haze of bullets.

That’s over now though, and Ethan needs to think of the future— think of the steps they’ll need to take to have had the last two and a half months not been in vain. Check the personal shit at the door and remember why he’s being paid.

As Ethan feared, Kathryn, Tyler, and Amy are gathered in the kitchen. Kathryn’s sitting at the bar on her laptop, likely finishing up her own report. His own laptop sits alone at the dining table where he’d left it yesterday before the mission, untouched.

Amy’s sitting at the breakfast bar two seats down from Kathryn with a mug of still-hot coffee in front of her, Tyler standing across from her looking a little worse for wear in the daylight. He looks largely okay apart from his arm, which is presumably still wrapped up, though Ethan can’t see the bandages from under his short-sleeved shirt. He’s still wearing the black sling Ethan had seen him with last night.

The mood shifts almost imperceptibly when Tyler’s eyes catch on Ethan emerging from the foyer and around the corner. The quiet words Tyler had been speaking falter and even Kathryn looks up from her laptop and behind her, affording Ethan a small smile. Ethan immediately wants to flee.

For a moment, he debates doing just that, but he desperately needs coffee— hopes it’ll quiet some of the chaos in his mind. Without coffee, it would be useless to try and do any work. So, he silently shuffles into the kitchen and thanks whatever god may be out there that there’s still coffee in the press on the counter behind Tyler.

No one says anything to him for a drawn-out minute and unrealistically, Ethan thinks they may let him get away without any trouble. No universe is that kind though because Tyler clears his throat and even turns to where Ethan now leans up against the counter on the far side of the kitchen, stirring his coffee.

“Feeling any better this morning? I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you last night, and I know tensions were running kinda high.”

Ethan’s eyes automatically shift to Amy, who looks horrified at Tyler’s words. What is he supposed to say? Is he supposed to just lie and pretend he’s fine? Surely one of the girls told Tyler about what happened after he was ushered away.

Under normal circumstances, Ethan thinks he might lie and put up a front to reassure the other man. These aren’t normal circumstances though, and that’s partly his own fault and partly Mark’s. As such, Ethan pushes his glasses up his nose and yanks a hand through his barely brushed hair before replying to Tyler.

“Death and near-death experiences seem to be a bit different now I guess, so no, I’m not doing great, Tyler. Maybe follow the damn plan next time, and I’ll feel a bit better the next morning.” It’s a little harsher than Tyler deserves, but Ethan’s properly wound up now as he pulls his mug from the counter and walks to his laptop that might as well be in another room.

His headphones are still lying there next to the wireless mouse, so Ethan just picks up where he left off and buries himself in documents and bureaucracy. It’s unhealthy for sure, but Ethan stops feeling the heavy stares from his teammates after a few minutes. It’s a small mercy that doesn’t last long though because soon enough, he feels footsteps reverberating across the old floors and glances up to see Mark, hair wet from a shower, shuffle into the room.

The tension must be nearly palpable, but Ethan can’t hear any of them, so he finds it hard to care at the moment. He’s gotten to the part of the report where he has to detail how everything went horribly downhill, and that’s sure to be interesting to read from both his _and_ Kathryn’s points of view.

A half-hour later sees Ethan hitting the print button on his report. He does a short circle over to the wall of windows before walking over to one of the built-in shelves off to the right of the dining table where their printer sits to retrieve the sheets so that Kathryn can look them over for errors. He’ll look over hers as well to make sure they’re endorsing the same set of events.

Ethan’s been so engrossed in his task that when he turns around towards the rest of the room, he sees now that Tyler’s left the kitchen, though Kathryn remains at the breakfast bar, Mark and Amy standing to one end of it murmuring to each other. From here, he can’t tell what they’re saying, though Mark’s eyes meet his at the scrape of the chair on the wood floors. Instantly, Ethan feels like a deer caught in the headlights. They’ve been talking about him, Ethan’s positive.

Mark follows him back over to the printer and comes to rest his shoulder against the shelves so he can see Ethan’s face. Unlike earlier, Mark’s gaze looks hard, all lovesick yearning gone. Ethan feels a little bit queasy.

“You done with that?”

Ethan nods because he knows there’s no point arguing semantics or his own skills. Kathryn will likely only have to make minimal edits, and her own will be easy to skim as well.

“Alright. Give that to Kathryn and then meet me in the office. I need to speak with you.” Mark doesn’t give Ethan the chance to respond before he’s walking out of the room and up the stairs without looking back.

The office makes sense because of its soundproofing. The seriousness of Mark’s expression combined with wanting to talk to Ethan where they have less of an opportunity to be overheard causes Ethan to feel like he’s about to be chastised by his superior though— like he’s about to get a mark on his record.

Ethan pointedly avoids Kathryn’s gaze as he hands her his report.

In the process of typing everything up, Ethan had shoved his sweatshirt sleeves up, and now he pulls them down over his knuckles and crosses his arms protectively over his chest as he trudges up the stairs and into the modest office. He has next to no time to prepare himself before Mark’s closing the door and rounding on him.

“What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing’.”

Even knowing Mark as he does, Ethan’s still taken aback by the bluntness of his statement.

“What? I… How do you know something’s wrong?”

If Ethan didn’t know better, he would think that Mark was miffed. “Even if it wasn’t my literal job to read people, I still know you after these months, Ethan. I can see you pulling back, building up those walls you had back at the very beginning.” Mark takes a step closer to where Ethan stands in the middle of the room.

“Don’t do that to yourself— to me. Don’t run from your feelings like this. I need you to talk to me. What’re you feeling? What’s going on?”

Ethan feels like breaking, wanting desperately to give into the comforting words that it’s okay to give in to his emotions. His throat feels tight though, thick with tears and maybe bile. He’s not strong enough to do this again so soon after last night. Ethan turns his head to look away from Mark’s intense stare, eyes falling instead on the desk full of computers and paperwork.

Against his better judgment, Ethan tries his best to articulate the thoughts in his head. Clearing his throat and wiping quickly at his nose, Ethan takes a deep breath before beginning, speaking as evenly and as quickly as he can. “I’m scared of the anger, and I’m angry that I’m scared. I’m afraid of losing more people, and I’m furious that it’s going to happen regardless because that’s the nature of this stupid job. I’m at my wit’s end though because I can’t take it— the stomach aches and anxiety when something happens.”

Ethan should stop there, but he finds the floodgates are open now. Every thought he’s had in the past three months are suddenly on the tip of his tongue. Eyes fixed to the floor and arms pulled even tighter to himself, Ethan can feel his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, but if he does anything to fix them now, if he looks up and sees Mark, his words will surely dry up.

“I am so terrified of losing you, Mark, and I think I already know that, but last night really put it into perspective. When Brian… When Brian died, I didn’t know that it had happened right away. It was a sniper that got him, one that we didn’t know was there.

“When you deviated from the plan last night, and I had to watch it happen in real-time, I thought I was going to have a panic attack because I thought I was going to have to listen to you die, listen to someone else I cared about die. I let that anger over the whole thing affirm why I had that wall up. If I let myself have you, I can’t imagine how it’ll feel if something worse happens. And I don’t want to trust you with any other analyst.”

This time, Ethan cuts himself off. Silence descends around them for several seconds, the heaviness broken in Ethan’s mind only by the sharpness of his fingernails as he digs them into his palms to feel something— anything.

All he can tell is that Mark isn’t saying anything, and the silence is dragging on and on and on. If Mark weren’t blocking the door with very good odds of stopping Ethan from leaving, by reaching out and snagging an arm around his waist, Ethan would try to make a break for it.

Ethan’s hope is quickly diminishing when he hears a broken, “Ethan…”

Ethan finally takes a glance up and sees that Mark’s taken another step forward— a step closer to Ethan, his arms half-outstretched as if he were about to pull him into a hug in a show of comfort.

Mark sounds more heartbroken than Ethan had thought he would, which is probably not fair to him. The other agent may keep a stony facade, but he’s not heartless.

“Ethan, I’m sorry you’ve been keeping that all inside. How long has that been stewing?”

Truthfully, Ethan doesn’t know when he really started to feel the things he’s breaking down over. So, he shrugs and tries not to let the tears that have gathered at the edge of his eyes spill over. These are things that have been building for a while, Ethan knows, likely around the time when Mark’s friendship with him had transitioned to one of longing and romantic inclinations.

“It’s okay to be scared in this line of work— it keeps us on our toes. Accidents happen when we become complacent.” Ethan doesn’t add in that Brian had been shot after they’d been sure they’d cleared the area.

Ethan nods though because he doesn’t have anything else to do and lets himself be gently pulled into Mark’s embrace where he eventually lets his own arms wrap around Mark’s waist. The other man is warm and solid surrounding Ethan, a comforting weight that helps to calm his breathing even further back to a manageable rate. 

If he could, Ethan would stay here in the room, alone with Mark, forever. They don’t have forever though, and the others will wonder where they’ve been after too long. 

Ethan apologizes to the others for being too caught up in his head to be a decent human and teammate before pulling himself back upstairs to take a shower. He lets Amy give him a soft and brief hug that speaks of forgiveness and understanding that almost overwhelms his fragile mental state. There’s no telling how much Amy knows about Brian— if she even knows anything, but he’s immensely grateful that she doesn’t ask any questions.

Kathryn tells him that Masterson is due at the apartment within an hour and a half, and Ethan finds the time passes a lot quicker than he’d like. The shower nearly scalds him with its warmth, but Ethan welcomes the heat— lets it relax the muscles he feels like he’s been tensing for most of the morning. 

When Ethan’s finished with his shower, he finds Mark sitting on his bed flipping through one of the books he’d picked up on one of their first outings in the city. Ethan doesn’t know why Mark’s sitting in his room rather than downstairs or even in his own room down the hall, but Ethan doesn’t make a big deal out of it as he dries his hair and pulls on a pair of soft socks. The picture of Mark sitting in Ethan’s bed propped against the headboard is a nice one that sets butterflies fluttering around Ethan’s stomach. It’s a feeling— and look— he could get used to.

They should both go downstairs and ready themselves for Masterson’s arrival, but Ethan finds he’d much rather lay curled up next to Mark. The Ethan of an hour ago would listen to his professional instinct, but this new and improved Ethan is one who listens to input from his emotions. Taking them into account, he figures ten minutes won’t hurt, so Ethan drops the towel in the hamper by the door and crawls up the bed before practically collapsing with his head near Mark’s hip. Mark chuckles at Ethan’s actions, asks him if he’s comfortable. All Ethan affords him in response is a satisfied hum.

Ethan’s finally feeling calmed down when there’s a knock at their front door. He’s sitting curled up in the corner of the couch closest to the sunlight, wrapped in the fluffiest blanket he was able to find. His laptop is sitting perched on the arm of the couch, which probably isn’t the smartest idea, but he ignores instinct in favor of comfort.

Mark looks up from where he’s lounged out on the opposite end of Ethan, his feet just touching the edge of the latter’s thigh. Rather than either of them get up for the door as they should, Amy jogs over from the kitchen, throwing them both looks as she goes past. 

“No, it’s alright, I’ll get it.”

From the corner of his eye, Ethan sees Mark smile something fierce. “Thank you, Amy. Have I told you you’re the best lately?”

In the break between the last window and the front door, Amy smiles fondly and sticks her middle finger up for a few seconds before letting Masterson inside.

Ethan can hear her cheery and cordial voice over Mark’s indignant scoff from next to him. The smile that creeps onto his own face feels genuinely happy for the first time in a few weeks, though it fades quickly as Masterson and Amy make their way into the living room.

Within moments, the sounds of footsteps on the stairs of Kathryn and Tyler are heard, Tyler’s steps the louder of the pair despite the requirements of his profession.

Masterson waits for everyone to be seated before he begins, though it takes a few seconds for Ethan to focus after Mark shifts to sit next to him after Amy comes to sit in the space between them. It shouldn’t surprise Ethan after last night and this morning, yet it still does.

“Well, good morning to you all. Did everyone get some well-needed rest after last night?” It doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to be condescending, but an unpleasant feeling settles in Ethan’s stomach regardless. The others nod quietly, and Masterson specifically asks Tyler how he’s feeling before delving into the purpose of his visit.

“I understand the mission did not go to plan last night, but I’m not faulting the design or you five. The good news is that we seem to still have eyes on the group, and they seem to be staying put for the time being. 

“However, Agents Fischbach and Shied, you were seen both by guards and the cameras. If we had eyes on them the entire time, we can only assume they had eyes on us. As such, I’m pulling you both from direct infiltration.”

The weight that lifts immediately from Ethan’s stomach makes him feel just a bit guilty as Mark sits up straight next to him, gaze questioning and objection at his lips raring to go. Mark feels slighted, and Ethan can understand why, but if Mark’s off the front line, then there will be less chance for him to give Ethan a panic attack again.

“Sir,” Mark tries, but Masterson shuts it down remarkably fast.

“No, Fischbach. I will not risk one of our best agents on a rookie mistake. There is too great a chance that they’ll see you coming, and I will not have them shoot you on sight because of that.” Masterson’s voice rises as Mark tries to get a word in again, but it’s to no avail.

“This decision is final. Nelson, you’ll take Fischbach’s place at the head. Because Agent Shied is injured, he’ll remain here at the house, out of the field entirely. Fischbach, you’ll be acting as extraction as Nelson usually does. Since we’re still short, French intelligence is lending us a few agents.”

Ethan lifts his head from where he’d been staring at the coffee table, startled at the new information. New people? The idea makes him uneasy after having worked with the same team for nearly three months now, and clearly, the others feel the same.

Amy clears her throat, speaking over Mark’s own beginning words. No doubt she’s interrupting anything unkind. “Is this the best course of action, sir? It’s just, we don’t know any of them, so we don’t know how they work, nor them with us. And I know they’re national agents, but can we know for sure that we can trust them? If we lose these guys again it’ll probably be it.”

Her words are much more eloquent than Mark’s surely were going to be, Ethan thinks. All the points she makes are ones that have begun to float through Ethan’s brain as well, but he’s sure he would have made it sound like a mess if he’d tried to articulate them.

Masterson nods as if seeing Amy’s point. “I understand your concern, but these agents won’t be making any decisions for themselves. They’ll be following everything you, Nestor, and Knutson tell them to. It wasn’t my first choice either, but even I’ve got someone over my head calling the shots.”

Then, in a move Ethan isn’t expecting, Masterson turns to him, seemingly laying eyes on him for the first time since arriving. “Nestor, Agent Knutson informed me of the setbacks last night. She said there were a lot of heightened emotions. Are you okay to remain on the assignment?”

The blush that runs to Ethan’s face might as well be instantaneous. He can feel his palms warm as Mark’s eyes shift to land on the side of his face. God, why Masterson is bringing this up here, he has no idea.

Ethan clears his throat, and it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough, in all honesty. “Ye-yes, sir. Everything’s been cleared up. I’m okay and would like to see this through to the end.” If it weren’t absolutely crazy, Ethan swears that he feels Mark squeeze at his knee from under the blanket still pooled in his lap. They’re both just the pinnacle of professionalism today it seems.

The answer seems adequate for Masterson though, who nods and claps his hands together with finality. “Right then, I’ve got another appointment to get to. We’ll all be in touch about the next steps. You are all doing a great job.” And then he’s leaving, everyone still sitting on the couches in varying levels of shock once the door closes.

“Well then,” Amy says out of the silence. “I’m going to go to the store to get some things for dinner. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Truthfully, Ethan expects the whole mission to be a bust, the gang retreating due to news of a break-in at the Louvre despite what Masterson had told them. But, the news never breaks about Mark and Tyler being shot at, and before the week is over, the gang is noticeably casing the Louvre again.

Ethan and Kathryn go back to the drawing board, trying to figure out a different way into the Louvre’s Italian collection, to the rooms where the forgers weren’t able to collect their prizes before. The one thing going for Ethan and the rest of the team is that the only thing that interrupted and prevented the forgers from engaging in the job were the security guards, not even the CIA. As far as Ethan is aware, the gang doesn’t know they’re being tracked— hunted.

It’s only because of this that Kathryn continues to be so confident that the forgers won’t leave Paris without the jackpot they were there to collect from the Louvre. Ethan’s still not so sure, but after a week of careful surveillance around the area the forgers had been sighted throughout their stay, the area is definitely still active, if only a bit less because of the spook. If he’d been coming into the mission fresh, Ethan doesn’t think he would even guess that there’d been a misfire.

Even with the team being down a man as Tyler’s sequestered to low-impact/low-stakes surveillance, Amy acts with ease tailing a few of the gang members on occasion around town and even through parts of the museums at times. Mark’s relegated to watching from a distance, a feat that Ethan still hasn’t heard the end of two and a half weeks in.

In an effort to quiet Mark, Ethan lets him sit in the office while Kathryn sits on a headset with Amy and Ethan studies the blueprints of the museum— updated this time— and looks for ways inside that make it easier to get around the implemented security measures. 

On a few occasions, Ethan catches Mark leaning in closer to him than he would have before the first heist attempt. If they’re trying to look at something specific on one of the computer monitors, Mark will lean in with Ethan, letting his chin perch on the latter’s shoulder to get a closer look if the piece of information is too small. Other times, Ethan will feel the ghosting of fingers across one of his shoulders, at the back of his neck while the body they’re attached to feigns ignorance as to the source of Ethan’s sudden blush. 

It’s thrilling in a sense, overwhelming in another. There are nights, ones where Mark’s allowed to watch the forgers at a distance with the cover of night to protect him, where Ethan goes to bed before he gets home. Those are the nights in particular where he’ll wake up after an hour, jostled by another body settling in next to him, that excite him most. The following mornings are often quiet, each almost too afraid to break whatever tentative thing they’re building in the silence between the two of them.

There’s one night where Ethan and Kathryn are in the office alone. Ethan feels like he’s up to his eyeballs in architectural blueprints and pressure sensor schematics, like he’s wading through a never-ending sea that he’s close to drowning in. He trips over his words for the third time in ten minutes when there’s a knock on the open office door.

It shouldn’t spook him— he knows there are three other people who are in and out of the apartment, but Ethan jumps regardless. The figure at the door is only Mark, clad in a loose t-shirt and sweatpants. He’s even got his glasses on, clearly indicating he’s on his way to bed. There’s a look in his eyes that nearly makes Ethan melt right there on the spot.

“You still working?” Mark asks as if it weren’t very obvious from the way Ethan is currently looking over Kathryn’s shoulder at her computer screen.

Ethan hums though, straightening and rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “What time is it?” Truthfully he hasn’t looked at a clock in at least a few hours, but if Mark’s going to bed, it must be late.

“Uh, it’s almost two I think. Why don’t you come to bed? You can continue this in the morning.”

And oh, that hadn’t really been what Ethan was expecting. Not ‘go to bed’ or ‘I’m going to bed’, but ‘come to bed’. A singular bed. One.

Even though they’ve been doing this thing of theirs for a few weeks now, up until this point, Ethan thinks they’ve been relatively discrete around the others. Judging by Kathryn’s smirk and averted eyes though— the way she’s very deliberately keeping her eyes on the computer screen, he wouldn’t doubt that she knows.

Part of him wants to brush off Mark’s words, tell him he’s going to keep working. The hour hits him abruptly though, drowsiness slamming into him like a semi. So, rather than try to brush everything off, Ethan nods and makes sure that it’s okay with Kathryn before shuffling over to the door.

If Ethan had thought the singular use of “come to bed” was a lot, Mark dropping his hand from the door and curling it around Ethan’s waist as he draws closer, nearly causes his brain to implode. As much as Ethan knows that he shouldn’t, it feels too nice, leading him to lean into the touch as Mark leads them next door to Ethan’s bedroom.

Another time where Ethan’s entire supply of blood floods to his face occurs while Mark’s sitting in the office with him. At this point, he’s beginning to notice a pattern. It’s late again, but Ethan’s still working while Mark has apparently decided that he himself definitely does not have to be up. So, he tells Ethan— and Kathryn by association— that he’s going to head to bed. Ethan resists the urge to turn in with Mark— he really needs to finish outlining the blueprints with _all_ the security measures they’d missed the first time that they’d found since.

He tells Mark as much, trying not to watch the way his face masks the disappointment that Ethan’s staying up this time. What Ethan doesn’t expect though is for Mark to lean back down after he’s stood up to place a firm and lingering kiss to the top of Ethan’s head. Whatever happened to discrete?

The pressure feels nice though, which is the reason that he uses to justify leaning his head into Mark’s space, smiling just enough. Ethan wonders when Mark will stop surprising him.

“Don’t work yourself too hard or it won’t matter that you stayed up in the morning.” Mark’s voice reverberates through Ethan’s head, the vibrations almost tickling.

“Alright, I won’t,” Ethan replies, just as quiet. As soon as Mark pulls away, Ethan misses him.

“Goodnight, Kathryn,” Mark says a bit louder than before.

Ethan doesn’t have to look at her face to hear the smile in her voice. “Goodnight, Mark. I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay up for too much longer. We should almost be done.”

And then it’s quiet for a few minutes before Kathryn inevitably speaks up. “You look happy with him.” It’s almost meek as if she were afraid of his reaction, which should be stupid.

He turns in his chair and smiles, similar to the one he’d just given Mark— soft albeit a little tired. “I am. I really am.” It’s barely a whisper, one he’s hesitant of speaking because once he’s said it, it’s true. It exists outside of him.

The smile Kathryn gives him in return looks proud, like one his mother would give him after he’d come home with a test grade he’d studied exceptionally hard for.

“Good. Brian would be happy, you know.”

Kathryn hasn’t talked about Brian much in Ethan’s presence this entire mission— has said his actual name even less. It feels jarring to hear someone else beside himself say it— so much so that Ethan feels his throat immediately grow tight.

“Yeah?” he grounds out, hopeful in a sense.

“Yeah,” Kathryn says like he’s absolutely positive. “He would want you to actually be happy with something.” She lets it hang there for a few moments, lets Ethan think over her words, and realize how much he’d needed to hear her say something to that effect.

Hearing Mark tell him that is one thing, but Mark never knew Brian. Kathryn did. It feels more substantial in this case.

Truthfully, he doesn’t know what else to do besides nod, trying desperately to keep the tears behind his lashes while he finishes the task at hand. When he crawls into bed later, into Mark’s warm embrace, he hears Kathryn’s words roll around his head and lets himself try this happiness thing for real. 

They’re able to learn the new date of the heist based on the surveillance they obtain through the thankfully still in-tact microphones placed throughout the gang’s apartment. Kathryn, who’s running surveillance at the time, practically catapults herself down the stairs after she gets the preliminary information, startling Ethan and Amy where they’re both in the process of making homemade pasta.

Their laughter trails off— having been trading stories about chaotic missions that went bad in the best way. She’d just been telling Ethan about a time where Mark had accidentally gotten roped into a DEA sting while undercover. Amy had laughed at him, let him squirm for an hour or two in custody before she’d gotten him out. Ethan can’t wipe the smile off his face while she recounts the tale.

Kathryn bursts through the doorway on the other side of the room though before Amy’s able to finish, interrupting them to recount the news. It lets them all sigh in relief, the map of security that Ethan has been building of the museum not having been a waste of time.

There are several things about this time that feel similar and different to the last time they did this. Of the similar, the new date is only two weeks away, and it passes much in the same way it had last time. Something that’s different though? Mark and Tyler won’t be at the front, but rather, it’ll be Amy and two French intelligence officers who will be arriving at the house prior to the mission. Something about it this time around feels final, like they won’t be doing this again. It should feel good, but it just feels wrong.

Also like last time, Ethan watches from the couch as Amy and Mark suit up, though this time he feels like they’re surrounded by Frenchmen while the two intelligence officers look on from the other couch next to Ethan and Tyler. That’s a difference right there— Tyler’s sitting next to Ethan on the couch, his arm no longer strapped into a sling.

What’s probably the simplest and yet biggest thing in Ethan’s mind that’s different this time is that Mark threads his wire under his shirt before he walks up to Ethan for the final bit of help. It almost feels like a fond memory when Ethan remembers how flustered he’d been at the time. Of course, that doesn’t stop Mark from getting way too close to Ethan anyway, standing close enough that their professionalism is wanting in front of these new people.

When it’s time for everyone to leave, Ethan hugs Amy first before leaning into Mark’s space and pulling him into a hug a bit tighter and longer than the one he’d given Amy.

“Be safe,” Ethan murmurs into Mark’s neck.

“You know I will be. I love you, yeah? We’ll go home after this.”

And then they’re pulling away from each other. Mark’s said it a few times already— times when the night is still and quiet around them and they’re curled into each other in Ethan’s bed. And yet, it still thrills Ethan to hear it anyway, so he lets himself smile because of it. Ethan goes to step out of Mark’s space completely, to let them leave, but Mark catches his wrist and pulls him back with an affronted look.

“What, you’re going to leave me hanging?” Mark asks, the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh you know I do, but I don’t start missions with professions of goodbye, so be safe, and I’ll see you when you get back.” And then he’s raising the hand that Mark’s own is attached to and placing a chaste kiss to Mark’s knuckles.

Mark looks like he wants to say something more until Amy chuffs out an insufferable sigh and yanks open the door, ushering the French agents out before grabbing at Mark’s arm. Ethan can barely hear one of the French agents asking Amy if everyone on the team was that close to each other.

The grin that settles on Ethan’s face as he watches the agents shuffle down the steps before locking the door helps ease some of the anxiety he feels.

Out of all the changes they’ve been through tonight, both good and bad, the most jarring one is that Ethan’s not in Mark’s ear because Mark’s not immediately going inside the museum. Kathryn’s going to deal with him, and a part of Ethan almost feels jealous that he won’t have the incessant muttering in his ears.

As they listen to the loudspeaker in the metro station filtering through the team’s earpieces, Tyler knocks on the open door to the office, still open for a few minutes more probably.

“Are they at the museum yet?”

“Nah, they’re on the metro. You can sit in here but you’ve gotta be quiet of course,” Kathryn answers for Ethan, smiling over at Ethan before Tyler. Tyler agrees, and before Ethan knows it, they’re breaking into the museum for the second time that trip.

Thankfully, the other agents work near seamlessly with Amy, following her every move and listening to Ethan better than any CIA agent ever has with not even an “are you sure” following after an order. It feels like too much to hope that they’ll be successful this time, and yet they actually make it to their hiding spot to wait out the forgers. 

And sure enough, the gang members show up as they’re meant to, and Amy and the two agents miraculously ambush them, the three of them aiming their guns at the men who are in the process of pulling down two sets of paintings off the wall.

One of the lookouts on the far side of the gallery reaches for their gun, but Amy’s faster. She squeezes off two rounds into the man before he has the time to raise his weapon properly. For better or for worse, she doesn’t hit anything too vital, the CIA training in her too great regardless of her life being threatened. Despite the gang’s notoriety, none of the others are willing to try their own luck. Instead, they raise their hands and get to their knees as she commands them to.

The scene looks surreal over the security cameras. Ethan numbly lets the feed resume to the security office while telling Kathryn to let Mark know he can call the police. Kathryn tells him though that it’s already done, and something about it makes Ethan’s chest flutter with pride— maybe it’s from how well they work together.

Ethan watches the screen as Kathryn transfers mic control for Mark while they await the French authorities. As he sits there and watches, counts, and names the people in his head, he notices that Calvin Daniels isn’t there. Had he always been missing?

Before Ethan can ask Amy about it though, the security guards storm the room— five of them— and Mark’s talking to him over the mic. “Everything okay on your end, Ethan? The federal agents are pulling in now.”

Mark’s voice pulls him back again, to where his concentration should be now, though Daniels’ absence sits weird in his stomach still. “I’m fine. I’m gonna lead you and the police through a service entrance that’ll put you right outside the gallery so you don’t have to snake all through it like we did.”

And so he does. Mark nearly gets shot by the federal agents for wearing no immediately discernible agency label, but thankfully their captain is the one who had just spoken with Mark, so the guns are holstered within a handful of seconds. The irony of Mark being shot by the police after all this isn’t lost on Ethan.

Watching the federal agents handcuff the members of the gang who are present almost feels a bit anticlimactic. At one point, Ethan swears he sees Clyde Reed’s eyes widen as he looks at Mark standing a few feet away talking to Amy. Though of course, he can’t be sure from the angle he’s watching from, and besides, why would Reed be looking at Mark that way anyway? He should have no reason to know what Mark looked like or even who he was.

 _Unless they were also trailing Ethan’s team,_ his mind supplies, but he quickly tells himself that’s just him being paranoid.

Still, though, it’s odd and makes Ethan relieved in a sense that they kept Mark on the outskirts of this. He still feels like he’s missing a piece, as conspiracy-minded as it sounds, but he just _has_ to be. Where is Daniels? Why are the first and third-ranking members present with a gaggle of people whose names Ethan hadn’t bothered learning? Where is their second? It doesn’t completely add up. But, the gang members are being yanked up and away towards the stairwell Mark had come up before Ethan can say anything. If he _is_ missing something, there’s no point in worrying about it anymore right now.

Perhaps the _best_ thing that’s in stark contrast to the last time the team came home from the museum, the best way to wrap up the night and quit making comparisons, is that when Ethan runs down the stairs as the door opens this time, he lunges at Mark, pulling him into a fierce hug. It’s one that nearly knocks Mark to the floor. Ethan can’t decide if the fierceness of the hug is partly out of relief, or partly out of necessity to calm his racing heart that’s been nearly beating out of his chest since Amy laid eyes on the forgers.

Now, with them finally home and safe, Ethan can’t help but melt into Mark’s embrace, an audible sob nearly escaping his lips when Mark’s arms grip tightly across his back, rocking on his heels to distribute Ethan’s weight.

“Thank God that’s over,” Ethan mumbles, tucking his nose into Mark’s neck, breathing in his smell. He can even feel Mark’s arms tighten just a bit more around his back as he says so, like a silent agreement in front of the rest of the team.

Ethan thinks he could probably stay like that for the rest of the night, but Mark still needs to shower and change. Besides, he’s pulled away by Amy’s voice off to his side, full of playful indignance and teasing. “Any love for the one who was actually inside the whole time?” Turning to see her, Ethan finds that she is indeed smiling, both sides of her mouth pulling up and threatening to reveal her teeth.

Only slightly appeasing her but also suddenly desperate to calm the rest of his nerves, Ethan shuffles over to her in two steps, throwing his arms just as tightly around her as he had Mark. Because the truth is, he feels just as relieved to have her back as he is to have Mark— it’s just a different kind of feeling separated by a few details and technicalities. 

“I could never forget about you Ames, you know that,” he murmurs instead before stepping away to look at her more fully. She looks tired, both her and Mark do, Ethan finds, but that’s to be expected. At least they’re both home in one piece and it’s over. They get to go home now, decompress from the last few months and revel for just a bit in the satisfaction of a job well done while the public remains unaware of the people behind the takedown.

Ethan thinks he can live with the anonymity. 

“Alright, enough of the seriousness. I think it’s time we have a celebratory drink for the better of the two attempts.” Ethan’s not sure who says it, but the acknowledgment of the last attempt earns a grimace from Mark. They don’t let the air go stale though, the brief silence broken by Amy, who claps her hands and points in the direction of the kitchen with an enthusiastic bounce in her step.

“Yes, let's!”

Amy and Kathryn pass in front of where Mark and Ethan still stand practically up against the door. Ethan finds himself way too engrossed in the way Mark snakes a hand around Ethan’s waist, pulling him back so that he rests against Mark’s chest before they join the others. 

“Amy’s not going to talk about it, but we were missing a few guys from the round-up. Did you notice that?” Mark hums in Ethan’s ear, low enough that no one else would be able to hear. It occurs to Ethan that Mark’s making it look like they’re displaying too much PDA for a completely different reason, and if this was any other circumstance, Ethan would be thoroughly distracted by Mark at his back whispering lowly in his ear. 

Ethan had noticed that, but he hadn’t been sure if the others had. He doesn’t need Amy to say anything about it though because it’s bound to come up from Masterson or someone similar. Regardless, he had noticed, yes. He’d noticed and then let his brain cook up outlandish conspiracies surrounding it. He tells Mark that he did indeed notice, but leaves out the part about the conspiracy theories when he turns his face in towards Mark’s cheek, speaking as lowly as Mark had. “They’ll tell us what we need to do, don’t worry. Just enjoy tonight.” And then to cap it off, Ethan places a gentle kiss on Mark's cheek and pulls away from his embrace enough to tug on the latter’s hand towards the kitchen.

Mark takes Ethan’s advice and enjoys the moment— at least Ethan thinks he does. Tyler hands him an amusing shot glass full of water, and the night devolves from there. It’s carefree for one of the first times in the last three and a half months, and a stark contrast to the last time Amy and Mark had come through that front door in tactical gear. In between all the smiling and laughing, Ethan finds himself feeling lucky not for the first time since this all started.

As Mark curls up next to Ethan in the latter’s bed later that night, thoroughly placated with alcohol, Ethan sleeps soundly and without trouble for the first time in a long time.

As Ethan had thought, Masterson reaches out a few days later with an update on the few higher-up members who had somehow evaded arrest. He sits them all down on the couches, echoing the previous time he’d been here— in the aftermath of Ethan’s mental break and subsequent meltdown. It feels different this time, less ominous as Masterson stands there and tells them they’ve tracked the fugitives to Eastern Austria. He tells them that they’ve assigned some local agents to their case, confident in their ability to apprehend the remaining members now as the men were injured and worn from travel.

On an internal level, one that Ethan’s not about to share with anyone, not even Mark, he’s glad they’re being pulled from the case. Truthfully, he’s tired, and after convincing himself over the last couple of days that they were through with the mission, the thought of transferring two countries over just _sounds_ exhausting.

The others don’t look too put out though, smiling and letting Masterson know that they approved of letting the case go. They did more than the brunt of the work, and they could pass off the stragglers to the local Austrian police now with a clear conscience.

Masterson looks strangely relieved, and for a moment, Ethan wonders if he had been expecting more of the fight Mark had put up when he’d been removed from the head of the operation. Mark says nothing this time though, sitting next to Ethan on the couch as he had been last time. They’re still the picture of professionalism in front of Masterson.

The last thing Masterson tells them before he leaves is that they’re not due to return home for another five days. Five days to have a proper vacation in Paris— while still remaining vigilant, granted. Finally, Ethan’s nearly four months of nonstop French lessons have a use for more than just asking questions at the grocery store or pretending to fit in at a cafe.

So sightseeing is what they do. Mark puts on a hat and a pair of thicker frames he’d had in his suitcase as a precaution— different from his normal glasses Ethan’s seen him occasionally wear— and they go properly spend a couple of days at a museum that is _not_ the Musée du Louvre. It’s unlikely that images of Tyler and Mark circulated among the surrounding museums after that first heist attempt, but there was no harm in being prepared for some freak occurrence. Plus, Ethan knows Mark appreciated not having to go through the hassle of shoving contacts into his eyes that morning, no matter how much he pretended to complain.

As their second to last night winds down, full of homemade food and proper French wine, Ethan feels like he’s just another tourist renting a way too expensive Airbnb. He goes to sleep that night thinking of what they might do for their last day tomorrow before it’s back to the U.S., full of English that Ethan doesn’t have to think about nearly as hard.

There’s something surreal about simply waking up without anything life-threatening being on the agenda for the day. Something magical about being woken up by the sound of a bird perched on the balcony railing singing its morning song while a car impatiently honks on the street below. Sleeping with the windows open is something Ethan doesn’t think he’ll ever really get used to.

The duvet and blankets are heavy over him, pulled up in the night as the gentle breeze had stirred goosebumps on his arms and legs despite the heat of Mark next to him. Just under their covers, Ethan feels the heavy weight of Mark’s arm across his lower back, holding him securely to his chest, Ethan’s head tucked snuggly into the dip of Mark’s collarbone and neck.

He wonders how early it is, but his view of the alarm clock is obstructed by Mark’s pillow, and his glasses are behind him on his own nightstand somewhere. The light filtering in through the sheer curtains isn’t quite white enough to suggest that it’s later than 8 or 9— the blue filter of night still clings to the air, reluctant to bid farewell so soon.

Sleep pulls at his eyelids as Ethan reconciles with himself the knowledge of the time. As he goes to shut his eyes though, shuffling carefully in Mark’s hold, he feels the latter’s fingers twitch on his bare skin. Mark’s other arm, which must have been just lying on the other side of his torso, reaches up to run a hand down his face before coming back up to rake it through his hair. Ethan shifts his eyes to watch, warmth filling his chest at the unkempt and sluggish movements.

After a moment, Mark’s unoccupied hand reaches over to Ethan and brushes away the chunk of hair that’s quickly falling into his eyes— his thumb lingers at the crest of one of his eyebrows, a certain look present in his eyes that ordinarily makes Ethan’s stomach swoop feels heavy between them but Ethan doesn’t want to break it, afraid it’ll lead to them shifting from this comfortable position.

“What time is it?” Mark murmurs.

“Mmm too early.” He’s not wrong in that sense, but Mark’s no stranger to mornings and Ethan really doesn’t want to get up yet. So, he pushes himself up, careful not to dislodge Mark’s hand from his face, and covers Mark’s lips with his own. In his haste, Ethan only manages to capture Mark’s upper lip, earning an insufferably fond huff from Mark.

“Is your depth perception that bad?” Mark asks, breaking the kiss after a few seconds to look at Ethan more directly. Ethan rolls his eyes at the playful jab and debates headbutting Mark on purpose and pretending that wasn’t his goal.

He settles for muttering out a half-assed, “asshole,” before Mark pulls him back in properly. They lay like that for a good while, Ethan leaning up and over Mark, until the sound of a police siren outside driving up the street startles Ethan out of the calm and quiet he’d created in his mind, where nothing existed besides the feel and soft sounds of Mark.

Over their quiet breathing and the sounds of the retreating police car, sounds of glassware clattering in the kitchen filter up the stairs and through their closed door. It must be later than they’d realized.

Ethan sighs, nuzzling his nose up against Mark’s. “I guess that’s our cue.” Mark’s silent for a few seconds, allowing Ethan to do an actual rundown on what he needed to do to get ready to leave tomorrow. To celebrate, Ethan decides he wants to cook everyone one last nice dinner. He’ll need to get up and go to the store for that though, an act Mark doesn’t seem too keen on right now.

Mark’s arm tightens around Ethan’s waist, making his position abundantly clear. “Mmm, it’s our last morning, stay a little longer.”

Ethan knows Mark will let him go if he’s insistent, so he plays into Mark’s hand for a little bit longer. “And how are you going to convince me when our absence will be noted?”

“Hmm, I’m sure I could think of a few ways,” Mark murmurs before moving, rolling Ethan under him. Ethan blinks, and Mark’s on top of him, face hovering a scant few inches away from his own. “Now you can never leave.”

“Yeah?” Ethan raises his eyebrows in a challenge and snakes his hands down to the small of Mark’s back and under the bottom of his shirt. He doesn’t miss the way Mark shivers at the feeling.

Ethan loses track of time a bit after that. They don’t do much besides kiss because of how close the rest of the team is. That’s not to say that Ethan doesn’t want all of Mark right now, practically aches with it as Mark pulls one of Ethan’s legs up to get closer, practically gluing them together. If Mark presses any closer, they would surely become one person. The only reason that Ethan doesn’t give in to the feral and innate tendencies of everything Mark is, rests solely in that he still has a little bit of a professional line. It’s just _very_ thin right now. 

Two quick and loud raps on the door do a pretty adequate job at interrupting them once and for all. It’s almost guaranteed that the owner of the raps is Tyler, but he doesn’t barge in, seemingly moving on down the hall before the tell-tale creaking of weight on the stairs can be heard. If it wasn’t obvious before where they were, it certainly is now.

“Fuck, I’ve gotta get up. I wanted to go to the store to get some things to make for dinner tonight.” Yet, Ethan still makes minimal effort to move.

“Soaking in all the French culture you can before we leave tomorrow?” Mark leans back on his knees, inviting a cold chill to Ethan’s bare chest.

“You act like I’m not gonna probably make something painfully average.”

“Maybe that’s what I’m in the mood for, you don’t know. Some mediocre French food made by your hands especially.” And then Mark’s off the bed and yanking open the curtains and letting in the sun.

Ethan blindly reaches for his glasses and then glances up at his phone in the process, seeing that it’s just past 10:00. Not the worst he’s ever done. Mark turns to smile at him, and Ethan feels like the sun gets a little brighter.

He tells everyone he’ll be back in forty-five minutes, tops, through burning cheeks as Amy lightheartedly teases him when he finally makes an appearance at the edge of the kitchen. They all nod though and then he’s on his way.

After losing some of the higher-ranking gang members, he feels especially careful in telling his team when they should expect him back. Masterson told them the rest of the gang should be in Austria— that doesn’t mean they are. If Ethan’s not talked to someone on the team or is still not home in forty-five minutes, they’ll assume something has happened and enact emergency protocols. It’s never happened before to anyone he’s known, but he’s too paranoid still.

The farmer’s market they’ve been frequenting during their time here is about a ten-minute walk with the shortcuts Ethan takes through a few of the city’s back alleys between buildings still left from before the city was restructured. Ethan loves them— loves how they transport him seemingly back in time to a different world.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a smart idea to stray from what’s known and where he’s highly visible. For instance, out here, where there are narrow corridors and few people, someone could be jumped relatively easily, attacked, and robbed of their belongings. So naturally, after everything Ethan’s been through, that’s what happens.

He’s turning the corner in the last stretch of the alley when he feels a sharp crack against the back of his head. Falling forward, his hands catch the brunt of his fall, his glasses flying off his face and onto the worn stone street.

For a second, Ethan doesn’t think to grab his glasses nor the gun stashed in the back of his pants and under his jacket. Ethan scrambles to catch his breath, the air having painfully rushed from his lungs upon contact with the smooth paving stones. His vision swims below him, and pain blooms behind his eyes as he tries to get his bearings. 

Before he even registers what’s really happening though, a pair of feet approach him, one foot stepping onto his glasses where they sit upturned on the stones, breaking off an arm and practically shattering one of the lenses. The other foot in the pair comes up and kicks Ethan square in the face, almost certainly breaking his nose if the crack and subsequent flow of blood is anything to go off of. A whine escapes unbidden from his throat as he’s flung onto his side, rolling onto his back as his hands come up to try and stem the flow of blood. 

The blows stop momentarily, allowing Ethan to wheeze in and out a few times. He tries turning over again to reach for his glasses to gain some semblance of clarity he can use to identify his assailants, but as his fingers make contact, another kick from the side catches him, shoving the air from his lungs once more. Then, there’s a hand on the back of his jacket pulling him up roughly, one pair of hands snatching the gun he’d forgotten about out of his waistband. Ethan’s fingers catch on the arm still attached to his glasses and pull them crookedly onto his face as he’s pulled up, gasping like a fish out of water. For a brief moment, he catches the blurry edges of one of his assailants’ faces before a dark hood is being shoved over his head, his arms being pulled behind his back and zip-tied tighter than necessary.

Ethan would laugh at the stereotypical nature of it if he weren’t on the verge of passing out from the pain. They half-carry half-drag him a few feet and practically throw him into the back of a van, the cargo door sliding shut as he tries to breathe.

For the next few hours, Ethan drifts in and out of consciousness. Each time he wakes, he feels the rocking of the van beneath him and the splitting headache radiating at every point of his head. His vision is almost certainly still doubled, though, with the bag on his head, Ethan can’t figure out how bad it is yet. It feels bad though.

A bit later still, Ethan’s being dragged from the van and into a building where their voices and footsteps seem to echo. From what little Ethan can smell through his clogged nose, the air between the van and building smells different— fresh maybe— as if they’re out in the countryside somewhere. While they’re cuffing Ethan roughly to a rusty pipe in some small closet, he wonders if the team is freaking out yet. It’s been hours and they’re at least a few hours outside Paris, so there’s no telling how far behind they are.

The bag is torn off Ethan’s head as his captors leave the room. It’s still dark, incredibly so, the only bit of light visible at the base of the door. As his head pounds and a wave of nausea passes over him, Ethan registers how frightened he is.

He has no idea why he’s here or what these people want. What is the rest of his team going to do? How are they going to be able to get him back? He seems to be out in the middle of nowhere, meaning the city’s CCTV footage is eventually going to run out.

Ethan’s not religious in the slightest, but he fleetingly considers praying.

The small closet Ethan’s being kept in, chained to the water heater he’s not convinced works, is not comfortable, to say the least. The original zip ties cut into his wrist from the way he’s got his hands cocked so that the additional metal handcuff connecting him to some water pipe isn’t too uncomfortable. The clanging sound the metal cuff makes against the rusted pipe is beginning to grate on his sanity— his captors’ too if their threats are anything to go by, close by outside the door.

Some inordinate amount of time later, just as the dryness in Ethan’s throat is threatening to overwhelm him, the door to his closet/cell is yanked open, bright light flooding the dark space. Truthfully, Ethan’s not sure how long it’s been since he’s been snatched from the street. It’s been multiple hours, for sure, but time has slipped away with the aid of the concussion and dark room they’d left him with.

Though he doesn’t truly know for sure who’s kidnapped him, Ethan has a good idea of who’s shoved him in this closet. The kidnappers had done a thorough job of disarming him and impairing his senses, so he’s almost positive that they have to be the remaining gang members his team failed to apprehend, the ones who were allegedly already in Austria, another department’s issue.

If this is who kidnapped Ethan, that would mean the team’s either about to or has already fallen into a trap, and Ethan’s being used as bait. And the worst part is that it’ll work because he knows that his team isn’t going to let him go quietly. They’ll fight for him even if it means their own downfall— their own deaths.

Now, as Ethan’s being dragged from the small closet, hands cuffed behind his back and a thick cloth wrapped around the base of his head and shoved into his mouth, the fear seeps back to the forefront of his mind. He can barely breathe out of his mouth, and his nose is still thick with blood.

The ground swims under him for the first few steps, but Ethan’s captor doesn’t let him stop to let everything settle. They’re dragging him out and through what is in fact an old, dusty, and abandoned warehouse. 

He hears his captor’s sonorous voice some feet away before he sees anything— words that make his blood run cold. It doesn’t occur to him for a moment that someone new is standing with him, holding him up by an uncomfortably tight grip on his upper arm, and that the man who’d pulled him from the closet is several feet away out in the open.

“Oh, are those Agents Fischbach, Nelson, and Shied I see? Hello and welcome. My greetings to Agent Knutson in your ears as well. And before you ask, yes, I know about all of you because I do my homework too.”

Ethan wants to scream, wants to run out into the open, back into the protective embraces of Mark, Amy, and Tyler. To move right now though would certainly mean death, and that’s about the last thing Ethan craves.

When Mark speaks, a simple and stern: “Where is he?”, Ethan wants to cry. It can’t be more than a day that’s passed, yet he feels like it’s been several since he heard the other man’s voice. It feels like it’s been years since they laid curled around each other in the warmth of their bed.

“Where’s who? Oh, you mean Agent Nestor? That’s all you’ve come for? Not to apologize for taking out half my team last week?”

The fractals of glass in Ethan’s cracked glasses certainly don’t make matters easy to begin with, and his concussion doesn’t make anything better. All this to say, he must miss his captor’s signal to reveal his hand because suddenly Ethan’s being shoved forward, barely keeping his balance as he’s manhandled into a standing position. The cold press of a gun barrel to his right temple causes his breathing to pick up— sends a shiver down his spine.

Maybe ten feet away or so, stands Mark, Amy, and Tyler outfitted in their tactical gear, guns pulled and down at their sides. Or well, Amy’s and Tyler’s are held down at their waists, pointing at the ground while Mark’s is still trained on Ethan’s captor. Mark’s going to get them both shot if he’s not careful.

Ethan knows he likely looks rough, made even worse by the fact that he’s still in his very casual clothes he’d put on to go to the market. Knowing he looks rough though and seeing everyone’s faces in reaction to his injuries are two different things entirely. Everyone’s eyes go wide, and Ethan thinks he sees Mark tighten his grip on his gun.

“What the hell did you do to him?”

“What was necessary. Careful though, Mr. Fischbach, if you want him back in one piece, you’ll have to do something for me first.”

Mark bites out a thin: “what,” at the same time that Tyler says: “The United States government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.” 

It honestly feels like a slap in the face, but Tyler’s right. These are dangerous people and they’re trained to apprehend, not chat terms.

“What do you want?” Mark speaks louder, and when Tyler tries to reprimand him, Mark bites out, “I am _not_ leaving without Ethan, that’s what’s non-negotiable. So go ahead, Daniels, what does your half-formed ring of criminals want?”

The name sends a jolt of recognition through Ethan’s fuzzy mind. Last name Daniels, first name Calvin. The fear that consumes him at that point is practically palpable. He knew he was missing something when the second in command wasn’t arrested. There was no way they’d just run off to Austria. Of _course,_ they’d been watching Ethan’s team. Everything comes into focus.

The gun shifts against Ethan’s temple, serving as a stark reminder that Daniels could end his life with the twitch of his trigger finger. On top of the fear, Ethan suddenly feels a lot more mortal. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of trying to say something before remembering the gag in his mouth, which promptly urges the gun away from his temple for a moment, only for the butt of it to slam hard into his cheekbone. The force of it nearly causes him to buckle more so than the pain at first, but Daniels’ steel grip on his shirt keeps him devastatingly upright.

“I want the locations to where my associates are being kept, followed by the blueprints to those locations.”

“That’s high treason!” Tyler says before Mark has the chance to blindly agree.

“Well, that all depends on how valuable Mr. Nestor is to you.”

Ethan can’t see Daniels, but he’s willing to bet he’s got a cocky smirk on his face, well aware of the situation.

“It’ll take time. Kathyrn will have to download them and then transfer the files to us.” Mark’s speaking like it’s a done deal— like Tyler isn’t one side that’s very opposed to the idea.

And in Tyler’s defense, Ethan isn’t sure he wants Mark to commit treason for him if it means he’ll be in jail for the rest of his life. Honestly, at that point, Ethan thinks he might be more in favor of the bullet.

“Mark! Please be rational about this! I love you, but I’m not going to jail for you.” Tyler’s beginning to sound desperate, trying, and failing to get through to Mark. It’s pointless though, Ethan knows it in his bones. He knows he’d be doing the same thing for Mark if he were in his shoes, and Ethan thinks that’s what scares him the most right now— how much they mean to each other.

“You won’t. I’ll explain everything to the authorities and you, Amy, Ethan, and Kathryn will go free. But I’m not leaving here without Ethan.”

“You know what?” Daniels speaks up, louder than Mark or Tyler as if to draw attention back to him. “If I don’t have a download confirmation in the next fifteen seconds, I’ll begin shooting Mr. Nestor for every thirty I don’t get one. And I’d hate to put a bullet in this pretty boy.”

And yeah, that gets Ethan’s pulse to jump to likely unhealthy levels. Ethan loses the plot a bit after Mark raises his voice at Kathryn, sounding right on the edge of panic.

At one point, while Kathryn’s transferring the files to someone’s device that they’re about to forfeit, Mark asks if Daniels will at least lower the gun from Ethan’s head. Predictably, nothing happens.

And then Ethan’s being shoved forward in space, his feet nearly catching on themselves. A fleeting thought of confusion passes before he sees Mark, tablet in hand, also stepping forward.

Daniels practically throws Ethan forward into Mark’s arms, the latter barely getting a grip on him before Ethan’s being wrestled to the floor, Mark’s chest covering the expanse of Ethan’s back, his arms reaching up to cover Ethan’s head and neck.

Hardly five seconds later, a volley of gunshots goes off, echoing loudly across the expanse of the empty building. It only serves to worsen Ethan’s headache as he’s knelt, frozen in fear. He can’t tell whose shots they were, but he can still feel Mark’s chest expanding and contracting above him, so that’s a good sign for the moment. And then, a door is being wrenched open, and the sounds of French police officers can be heard echoing across the floor.

Mark moves off him a few moments later and then a few after that, Ethan hears the snip of his handcuffs being cut off with one sure stroke of a knife. Relief is practically instant, a small bit of pain removed from the great pile of it Ethan feels. The blood begins to flow back into his arms, bringing with it an unpleasant tingling, but at least he can feel it.

Noise surrounds them now, in both English and French, and honestly, Ethan’s never been so grateful to hear French before. He doesn’t have time to focus on much of it though before Mark’s face fills Ethan’s field of vision, his face a mix of concern and relief.

One of Mark’s hands comes up to lightly cradle his face, his thumb ghosting over where Daniels had clocked him with the gun fifteen minutes prior. Ethan’s eyes flutter shut at the feeling, though he’s not sure if it’s at the pain of the split skin and rapidly forming bruise or if it’s because he’s finally safe in Mark’s arms.

“Hey, you still with me?” His voice is still gentle amidst the chaos, a soothing balm on Ethan’s fried nerves.

“Yeah,” he manages to croak out, very aware all of a sudden how thirsty he is.

At the confirmation, Mark appears to visibly deflate. He looks as if he were a puppet whose strings had just been cut. Then he’s moving closer, pressing a firm yet still lingering kiss to Ethan’s forehead. Ethan can practically feel the relief and love flowing off him in waves. It’s borderline overwhelming but perhaps he’d like to drown in it anyway. Distantly, he wonders if Mark’s feeling emotions similar to what Ethan had felt after that first failed heist.

“We’re gonna get you to a hospital, make sure everything’s okay with your head. That sound good?”

Ethan barely registers people moving towards him, but all he has the strength for is to weakly nod his head. Even with a simple move like that, his head pounds heavy against his skull, causing Ethan to squeeze his eyes shut against the onslaught of pain.

The paramedics kneel down next to Mark and him, and through their ambulatory questioning in accented English, Mark stays with him.

Ethan doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but he wakes up in a hospital bed, the steady sound of a heart monitor beeping just behind him. Out in the hallway, there’s someone speaking garbled French over the loudspeaker. For a wild moment, he wonders where he is.

The events of the past day or two filter back as he’s reacquainted with his headache. Ethan reaches a hand up to rub at his eyes and sees an IV port taped to the back of his left hand. Along with the IV is a small square of gauze taped high up on his right cheekbone just under the edge of his eye.

A passing nurse knocks on his open door, drawing his attention away from his injuries and back to the present.

She introduces herself as Dominique and checks his vitals. While she’s in there, she informs him of his injuries and what to expect from each of them. Ethan’s got a pretty nasty concussion, and the bandage on his face hides two stitches and a hairline fracture on his right zygomatic bone. His right shoulder had been popped out of its socket at some point, he’s got a few bruised ribs, and his nose was broken. On top of all that, he’d been decently dehydrated when they’d brought him in.

There's so much information that all Ethan finds he can do is nod along. When she asks if he’s got any questions, the only one that comes to mind is to ask the whereabouts of his team, though, to her, he asks if there was anyone with him when he was admitted. She clearly hadn’t anticipated that question immediately following a detailed list of his injuries, but she nods and tells him she’ll go get them. His stomach flips at the thought.

A few minutes later, Mark, Amy, and Kathryn shuffle into the small hospital room, the door shutting behind Dominique. Tyler’s noticeably absent from the group, but Amy quickly clears up the concern.

“Someone had to stay behind and help the authorities, so Tyler volunteered. How you feeling, bud?” It’s not even been terribly long, but Ethan suddenly finds that he’s missed Amy’s mothering tone, something fierce. He distantly remembers his first conversation with her where she’d teased him about not being a field agent. Laying here in a hospital bed now, beaten and bruised, he supposes she may have had a point.

“Been better, you know?” That gets a small laugh out of all of them. His eyes flit to the end of the bed where Mark sits down and settles a hand on Ethan’s ankle closest to him, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over the blanket.

“What exactly happened? I kinda lost the plot after I got clocked across the face. How long was I gone for?”

“You were gone for about an hour and a half by the time Mark was in full panic mode,” Amy says, pointedly not looking at Mark. Ethan does though and sees a blush covering his cheeks. “We tried calling your phone about five times by the time we decided something was really wrong. It wasn’t hard after that to get footage from local authorities of the CCTV when we flashed our badges. We tracked you to the city limits before Kathryn remembered that your glasses have a tracker in them. Did you know that?”

Ethan thinks for a minute and thinks he possibly remembers being told that last year when he’d gotten the frames from the department. “Uhh… vaguely maybe?” He feels a squeeze on his ankle but tries to ignore it.

“So we found you after about four or five hours. After we pinpointed your location, we got into contact with the department and local authorities. It was Tyler’s idea to try and sow the discord within the team. He wanted me to tell you he’s sorry and that he wouldn’t actually abandon you if we truly had been alone.”

The sentiment is reassuring to hear regardless, and Ethan feels his throat constrict. These people mean so much to him, and to know that he means equally as much to them hits him like a train against his already aching soul.

“I was acting too, for the record,” Mark speaks up, clearing his throat. “Could’ve left you there and finally gotten some peace and quiet.”

Ethan knows he’s joking, the straight face not quite reaching his eyes. “Sure you were, big guy. I missed you too.” He reaches his hand out, the one that doesn’t have an IV in it, for Mark, a sudden need to be closer, to feel his warmth outside of the hospital blanket. Damn the eyes on them.

“Wait, how did they know where to find me?” Ethan asks instead of dwelling on his feelings for a minute.

Kathryn pulls in a deep breath. “Based on preliminary talks with Daniels, the gang was watching our movements since the second heist. We’re not sure how yet, but someone on their team was able to hack the system and find our whereabouts. Apparently, a very smug Daniels told Amy that they’d been watching us come and go and simply picked the first person who left alone.”

They sit in silence for a moment before Mark takes Ethan’s hand in both of his, placing kisses to his fingers, his palm, his wrist, much like the one he’d given Ethan’s forehead on the floor of the warehouse. “They picked the wrong analyst to kidnap is all I’m saying.” Ethan feels lightheaded from the sentiment but offers a small smile at Mark’s statement. It disappears though as soon as Mark speaks again. “God, you scared me. Don’t ever do that again, okay?” He’s speaking low now, only for Ethan’s ears, but it’s still a small room.

All of the air is gone from Ethan’s lungs, sucked away by the gesture and words. He has no words that can encompass how he feels right now, so he nods dumbly, wetting his lips for lack of anything better to do. After a moment, Ethan does manage to croak out an: “I’m sorry.”

Everyone spends a few hours with him, just talking and taking shifts to get food from the cafeteria. Ethan’s nurse tries to shoo everyone out around 8:00 and succeeds with everyone save for Mark. Amy and Kathryn look on knowingly as Mark explains the situation to the nurse, while Ethan tries to hide his bright red face.

Mark succeeds because he’s Mark. Ethan says goodbye to the girls through his fingers on one hand while his nurse takes his other arm to get his vitals for the hour.

With everyone gone, fatigue slams into Ethan, barely able to keep his eyes open as Mark sits in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to Ethan’s bed. They’re talking about nothing specific, Ethan playing with Mark’s fingers while he watches the latter’s face. He’s not sure if it’s the day’s events or the mild pain meds they’ve given him, but all he wants is for Mark to get up into the bed with him so he might get a few hours of dreamless sleep. He’s not confident enough to wish for dreams, just not the nightmares he’s sure are about to plague him.

So, he tugs on Mark's hand, mumbling about wanting him up there with him. Mark smirks but Ethan doesn’t care if it’s due to his drowsiness or if it’s because he was waiting for Ethan to ask. He doesn’t say so either, simply taking his jacket off and rounding the foot of the bed to plug in the phone charger Kathryn had brought, before finally laying down on Ethan’s right side away from his IV. Ethan scoots over to make room as gently as he can, only wincing slightly as he jostles his sore shoulder and ribs.

As soon as Mark’s situated and has pulled Ethan’s blankets over his own legs, Ethan’s leaning on him, feeling sleep tugging at his eyelids near immediately. It’s a good way to fall asleep, so Ethan does just that despite the lights still being on overhead. The nurse will turn them down when she comes back in later, he’s not concerned. All Ethan needs right now is the warmth and stability and safety of Mark, and he’ll be content.

Mark’s tucked himself up next to Ethan on the hospital bed when the latter’s woken up by a knock on the door courtesy of his nurse. Ethan’s barely got time to open his eyes, let alone be awake enough to shuffle Mark out from under him, before the door’s opening, letting the bright white light from the hallway flood into his room. It’s unpleasant, a grumble of upset forcing its way out between his lips at the harshness of the light on his eyelids.

For a moment, he contemplates leaving his head tucked into the warm spot of Mark’s neck and simply pulling out his arm from under the blanket so he can get his blood pressure taken. That’s been the only reason for his nurse to wake him up in the past two days, after all. Cracking an eye open though, Ethan sees not his nurse, but the blurry figure of a tall person with light, almost gray hair and dark clothing. Abruptly, Ethan realizes that it’s Masterson standing at the foot of his bed in his usual suit and tie. 

It’s relatively easy for Ethan to wake up after that.

He jerks upright, accidentally nailing Mark in the chin with his forehead and causing a pulse of pain to radiate out through his head at the impact. Mark shuffles at the movement, his hand tightening its grip on Ethan’s waist momentarily in drowsiness and confusion. Ethan’s announcement of: “Captain Masterson, what an unexpected surprise,” sufficiently wakes Mark. His voice feels rusty with sleep, but the use of their superior officer’s name gets Mark up and going, practically jumping out of the narrow hospital bed and tripping in a tangle of blankets and phone charging cords.

“Sir,” Mark huffs as he straightens his sweatshirt out and brushes away the wrinkles. There’s a small part of Ethan that would laugh at the state of Mark’s hair that he leaves messy in any other circumstances but now is not the time.

“Boys.” A small smirk pulls at the corner of Masterson’s mouth at Mark’s flailing, which only serves to further mortify Ethan, a blush traveling up his neck. “How are you feeling, Ethan? I’m sorry I couldn’t get over here sooner, but I was held back in London.”

The use of his first name sits weird in Ethan’s chest, but he tries his best to offer a smile. “Like shit, sir. They got me pretty good, but I think I’ll be okay.”

The smirk at the corner of Masterson’s mouth pulls itself into a full-fledged smile at Ethan’s honesty. “Yes, that seems to have been a massive oversight on our part to have been so confident they had fled the city. You’re lucky you have a team of extraordinary agents who care for you.” Ethan tries not to notice the way his eyes shift over to Mark, but it’s true in any case. If this had happened on another team, one of the disasters he’d told Mark about two months ago, Ethan’s pretty sure it would have had a different outcome. He shivers at the thought.

“I feel incredibly lucky, sir.” Ethan clears his throat before continuing, suddenly finding it thick with emotion. “Um, I’m assuming we’re cleared to go home?”

“The others, yes. Your doctor advised me to tell you that he wants you to remain in the city for a couple more weeks so he can monitor you and make sure you’re fit for flying. We don’t want to leave you completely alone though, so I’m assuming Agent Fischbach will be staying with you?”

If there wasn’t a full-on blush covering Ethan’s face before, there sure is one now. “Um...yes? That would of course be up to him though.” Ethan chances a glance over to Mark and sees the other man already focused on him. The embarrassment abates a bit as the full extent of what Mark means to him washes over Ethan.

“Yes, sir, that would be the plan. I’m assuming we’ll do a formal debrief once we’re back in New York?” Mark pulls his gaze from Ethan, leaving him feeling cold as if Mark’s gaze had held the warmth essential for life in this frigid hospital room. For a moment, he almost forgets Masterson is still standing feet away.

Masterson nods though and tucks his hands into his pockets. “Correct. The other three are needed back sooner, which is why they’ll be heading back at the end of the week. If you guys need anything, please reach out. Just because the assignment is over doesn’t mean you’re not still under our eye while you’re here, okay?” 

They both nod, and as Masterson turns to leave the room, his hand on the door handle, he turns back quickly. “Oh, and before I forget. Normally, we wouldn’t allow two people in a relationship to remain partnered on the same team, but I’m going to talk to the people upstairs to argue for allowing it this once because of how well you work together. We’ll discuss it more in two weeks' time, but don’t let me regret it, are we clear?”

Ethan’s struck dumb, only capable of nodding dumbly as Masterson smiles and steps out of the room with finality. He listens for the click of Masterson's shoes to fade down the hallway before he brings his hands up to cover his eyes, groaning at everything that had happened in the last ten minutes. His hand hits his bandage across his cheekbone a little too hard, causing his groan to end in a bitten-off curse.

From a few feet away, he can hear Mark huff out a laugh before Ethan feels him sit back on the edge of the bed. “We sure dodged a bullet on that one.”

Ethan can’t help but groan with renewed strength as Mark circles an arm around his shoulder and pulls him in for a reassuring kiss to the side of his temple. “I hate you.”

“Mmm, you wish that were true.”

Luckily, Ethan’s doctor lets him leave the hospital the day before Amy, Tyler, and Kathryn are meant to leave. He hurts all over, still aching from the beating he’d received nearly a week ago now. The bruise under his right eye where the two stitches sit is beginning to turn a nasty green, only adding to his haggard appearance. The swelling around his nose has gone down at least a bit, and he’s a mess of purple and green across his chest where he’d been kicked multiple times.

And throughout all this, the only times Mark’s left his side has been to run home for changes of clothes. It should feel suffocating, never being alone, and yet Ethan misses him even worse when Mark leaves. According to the hospital’s visitation policy, Mark should not be staying each night, but for one reason or another, Dominique lets him stay and keep coming back.

Tyler had come to see him the second day, apologizing for his role in the rescue mission in-person, and just about crushing Ethan when he’d sat up to give him a hug.

Seeing them all again back at the apartment feels a little bittersweet in a way. The downstairs is practically devoid of all their personal effects that had gathered here and there over the past three and a half months, lending an eerie sense of calm and loneliness now.

Amy nearly bowls him over in the foyer with a hug that she hadn’t been able to give him back when she’d visited the hospital with Kathryn that first day. The warmth of it is something Ethan hadn’t realized he’d been missing until he’s feeling it again after what feels like one of the longest weeks of his life.

"You feeling better? You look a bit rough still." Amy asks, holding Ethan out at arm's length. He still can't lift his right arm too far from not working it while in the hospital.

Ethan huffs out a few giggles. "I'm getting there. I'd rather be going home with you all tomorrow though." He watches as Amy's eyes flit to Mark and then back.

"Oh, I think you'll be fine. And the three of us will be at the airport to welcome you both home in two weeks and we'll have to go out for dinner. Deal?"

The idea sounds nice— dinner, drinks, and plenty of people who speak English, surrounded by this team who has quickly become his family over the past few months.

"Sounds like a plan."

Ethan greets Kathryn and Tyler similarly and spends much of the remainder of the afternoon helping Kathryn pack up the office, winding up cords, and packing away keyboards. He's insistent on helping regardless of his physical state. As such, there are a few times where she has to help him lift one of the towers from the floor onto the table as they'd originally found them.

The evening is spent down in the living room, swathed in blankets with the windows thrown wide. It's a perfect way to wind everything up after the past week, and a part of Ethan’s going to miss it, sitting on the floor between Mark's legs and giddy on a few glasses of wine.

Ethan feels like a different person from the one who boarded the plane in Canada, and he can't help but agree with what Kathryn told him before the second mission— Brian _would_ be happy for him. Surrounded by the warmth of Mark’s arms, Ethan decides he is too.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, if you're seeing this, thank you for getting this far, and I hope you had a good time.  
> I really had a good time writing this monster, and a part of me can't believe that it's over after all this time. If you enjoyed it, drop me a comment or a kudos (or both if you're feeling saucy).
> 
> I was going to drop the link to the Paris apartment I based the team's safehouse on, but unfortunately, it sold mid-February so I can't link it here (who's buying multi-million euro houses right now, pray tell). But alas, some things are just not meant to be I guess.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ kolyarostovs if you were interested.


End file.
